CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — For about one minute Wednesday, Vladyslav Heraskevych had a break from thinking about the war back home in Ukraine, his friends and other athletes who have died in that conflict and his fight to pay tribute to them at the Winter Olympics. He had the Cortina Sliding Centre’s mile-long track and 16 curves to worry about.
Not that they appeared to trouble him much — he was the quickest man in the final practice session before the men’s skeleton heats start Thursday morning.
He was second-fastest Tuesday and fifth-best Monday. The 27-year-old is ranked 11th in the world this season, but he has come to these Games, his third, in the best form of his career.
It would be a terrible shame, then, if he is prevented from competing or immediately disqualified after his first competitive run.
But that is the course that he and the International Olympic Committee find themselves on, as he and his “helmet of memory” are hurtling in from one direction, and the Games’ bosses, clutching their Olympic Charter and athletes’ guidelines, are coming from the other. A collision seems inevitable.
When Heraskevych first wore his helmet in the unofficial practice sessions last week, nobody noticed what was on it. We still had not caught on when he carried Ukraine’s flag during the opening ceremony in Cortina on Friday.
But when he wore it for Monday’s first two official training runs, the world finally spotted that his helmet was covered with photos. And, when asked who was depicted in the images, he told us, calmly but defiantly. They are, he said, 24 of the more than 500 Ukrainian athletes who have been killed since Russia invaded his homeland in 2022. Some of them would have been on Ukraine’s team at these Games if their lives had not been cut short. Some were friends of his.
It is a message he has repeated, with great composure, on his social media channels, in interviews at the sliding centre, and even in a hastily-convened media conference in front of the Olympic rings in Cortina on Tuesday evening.
The IOC has been content to let him do that. But it has also been very clear that there are times and places for his “understandable expressions of grief,” and those times and places are now, on Instagram or X, or in a mixed zone after his event. But they are not while he is competing.
Citing Article 50.2 of the Olympic Charter, which says “no kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas,” the IOC has dug in its heels and told Heraskevych he cannot wear that helmet Thursday.
As of Wednesday afternoon, that message had been conveyed to him via a conversation with his coach Monday evening and the media briefings the IOC’s chief spokesman Mark Adams holds every day during the Games.
Having been forced to explain the IOC’s position on the helmet Tuesday, Adams was back on the ramparts of Olympic neutrality Wednesday, as questions rained in from all directions.
“We will contact the athlete today and reiterate the many, many opportunities he has to express his grief,” said Adams, noting all the ways Heraskevych can and has made his point already.
“We want him to compete. We really want him to have his moment. We want all athletes to have their moment. And that’s the point. We want all athletes to have a level playing field.”
Adams explained that when the IOC has asked athletes how they feel about political statements, the response is unanimous: Keep them off the field of play.
“Let me be clear, it’s not the message, it’s the place that counts,” Adams explained.
“And it’s not us, we’re in the backseat, it’s the athletes who want this. There are 130 conflicts going on in the world. We cannot have 130 different conflicts featured, no matter how terrible they are, on the field of play, during the actual competition.”
But still the questions came. Is this really a political statement? And what about all the other athletes who have made similar tributes to deceased family members or friends?
Asked what the difference is between Heraskevych’s gesture and the tribute U.S. figure skater Maxim Naumov paid to his parents, who died in the collision of American Airlines flight 5342 and a military helicopter over the Potomac River last year, after his event Tuesday night, Adams basically said Naumov did it right.
“It was a very emotional, very human gesture, and I think everyone can understand it,” he said.
“In a sense, it highlights what we’re saying. Heraskevych can have his helmet in the mixed zone and talk to people about it, and we’ve loosened the rules; we’re offering him the right to wear a black armband, but what happened last night makes our case even stronger. (Naumov) competed, but then afterwards he expressed himself spontaneously.
“Rules will never exactly work for every case, but I think you can see a very clear difference. We are saying that you can express your understandable grief before and after the competition, as this skater did so eloquently last night.”
It did not take long for Heraskevych to respond to this via Instagram and X.
In another calm but defiant video posted an hour after Wednesday’s media briefing, he said: “The IOC has turned the situation with the ‘memory helmet’ into a theater of the absurd.
“In yesterday’s statement, IOC spokesperson Mark Adams emphasized equality among athletes and used precisely this argument to justify the ban on using (it). Yet on the same day, an American figure skater, during his performance in Milan, paid a beautiful tribute in memory of his parents who died in a plane crash — and, of course, received no sanctions for it.
“This situation could serve as a perfect definition of the concept of double standards. We demand the lifting of the ban on using the memory helmet during competitions at the Olympic Games. It is obvious it does not violate any IOC rules.”
Adams did not want “to prosecute this in public,” so he sidestepped questions about what the IOC would do if — or when — Heraskevych goes to the start line wearing his helmet Thursday. He would only say that he hoped the power of persuasion and human interaction would win the day. Right now, that seems as idealistic as the IOC’s stance on sports and politics.
When asked what he thought of the compromise solution of wearing a black armband, Heraskevych said: “I truly believe that the IOC doesn’t have enough armbands to honor all the athletes who have fallen in this war.”
This is a battle the IOC desperately wanted to avoid. But it is a battle it cannot avoid.