Romanchuk won the bronze at the World Championships in Budapest in the 800 m Kraul on Tuesday evening for Ukraine, where his father and coach are still fighting on the front lines after the invasion of Russia.
“I hope that the medal means a lot for Ukraine. We have hard times and I showed the world and all Ukrainians that we fight to the end,” Romanchuk said after the race in the Duna Arena catacombs. At the award ceremony, the fans in the almost sold-out swimming pool in the Hungarian capital cheered him euphorically, there was repeated applause.
At the moment of success, Romanchuk’s thoughts were with his family at home. “My father is fighting in the war in the East,” he said. “He writes to me every morning to see if he’s okay.” However, he could not speak to him because they had no way of establishing a connection to the network. “The Russians destroyed everything.” He therefore does not know whether his father was able to follow the World Cup race.
Moved to Germany
A few days after the start of the war, the 25-year-old received an invitation from his German rival Florian Wellbrock. Romantschuk accepted it, he moved to Magdeburg without further ado to form the strongest training group in the world with his competitors Wellbrock and Lukas Märtens. “It was hard. I was always particularly mental during the war, I only slept three to four hours because you always read the news,” said Romanchuk.
Actually, the two-time Olympic medalist intended to “go to war to defend my home.” Then there were long discussions with the family and his wife, and ten days after the start of the war came the realization: “We decided that I couldn’t do anything with a gun.”
Instead, he should be doing what he does best: swimming. “With my swimming performances I can tell the world how the situation in Ukraine is,” he said. According to Romanchuk, ten athletes died, and seven training pools and around 50 athletics stadiums were destroyed. Russian and Belarusian athletes were excluded from the title fights in Hungary by the world association FINA because of Russian aggression.
“Was ready to kill him”
Romanchuk was particularly not on good terms with Yevgeny Rilow, Russia’s double Olympic champion in Tokyo. Rilov publicly endorsed Russian President Vladimir Putin, which didn’t sit well with his fellow Ukrainian swimmers. “I was ready to kill him,” Romanchuk said emotionally, “Before we were good friends, but everything changes.”
In any case, Romantschuk is looking forward to seeing his family again in Budapest. “They’ll be here in a few days. I haven’t seen them in four months, it’s tough,” he said, thanking Wellbrock again, who also won a medal in the 800m freestyle. “Our goal was to get gold and silver,” said the German, who then went on to win silver and bronze.
In the title fights, Romantschuk will fight for medals in the 1,500 m freestyle and in the open water over 5 and 10 km. Then he will go back to Germany. Finally, he addressed a message to his compatriots back home: “I’m so proud of the people of Ukraine and of the President. I’m really happy to be Ukrainian.”
Source: Nachrichten
