Training for the Olympic Games in a country at war: for two years this has been the everyday life of Maryna and Vladyslava Aleksiiva, two Ukrainian twins who qualified for the Olympics in artistic swimming.
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Smile in the water during the choreographies, the search for the perfect gesture like all swimmers. But stories of war are never far from the minds of Maryna and Vladyslava Aleksiiva, two 22-year-old Ukrainian women who qualified for the Paris Games in artistic swimming. The twins swam their technical program last weekend, at the brand new Saint-Denis Aquatic Center, to music titled War stories. They named their free duo Up and downups and downs enjoy their lives for two years.
“It’s hard to control your emotions, to be positive, explains Vladyslava Aleksiiva. Tout in time, I forgot to turn off my phone’s Ukraine alert alerts, and it’s stressing me out.” “There was thunder the other day in Paris and it scared us, we wondered: but what is it? ?”adds the sister.
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They fled their hometown in February 2022
Maryna and Vladyslava, nicknamed Vlada, do not have preparation like the others. When the war broke out in February 2022, they fled their hometown of Kharkiv, 30 kilometers from the Russian border. “We only had a suitcase with summer clothes because we had to do an internship in Türkiyeremembers Maryna. The last thing we took when we left our apartment were our Olympic medals.” This bronze medal that they won with Ukraine in the ballet event during the Olympics in Tokyo in the summer of 2021.
Their country left behind, they go to Italy with the artistic swimming team and its coaches. But after six months they go home, to Kharkiv and then to Kiev. “We could have stayed abroad, but we have all our loved ones in Ukraine: our parents, our grandparents, my husbandsays Vlada Aleksiiva. It’s less stressful to be all together, to know how they experience the situation in Ukraine.”
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With training in an unheated pool in Kharkiv or a swimming pool next door like a missile crashed in the capital: the risk is everywhere. “It’s like in a horror movie: you’re in the swimming pool, you hear an explosion and you have to run for cover, sometimes not knowing where to godevelops Maryna, the most talkative. For everyone else this would be an abnormal situation, but for us it has become normal. And we have to train in these conditions.”
The two sisters will spend a few days in the south of France, between Nîmes and Montpellier, before a new competition in Canada at the end of the month. Then it’s time to go back to Ukraine in June. – Everything is difficult for usinsists Vlada. Get out of Ukraine, go back, train. But we want to be positive, we want to believe in our country, in our soldiers and everything will be fine.”
“They are truly warriors,” says Louis Villiers, documentary filmmaker who followed them for 11 months [le documentaire intitulé Les Sirènes de Kyiv sera diffusé le 18 juillet sur Canal+ Docs].
“In a scene we filmed during the Ukrainian championships in December, there was a bomb threat and the whole audience, including their loved ones, took shelter in the basement of the swimming pool. The swimmers were left alone in the pool even though it was dangerous. It’s a situation we don’t see in some other country.”
Louis Villiers, documentary filmmaker who followed them for 11 monthsat franceinfo
“There is a real contrast between the grace, the beauty of their sport and the violence that surrounds themcontinues the co-director of the documentary Alexandra Guiral. We almost wonder why they continue when a missile threatens to fall on their swimming pool or apartment. It is a way for them to live life. They really have a kind of resilience, like all Ukrainians.”
Maryna and Vlada’s biggest dream: to win another medal in Paris this summer, for them and for Ukraine. “This is our main mission: to represent Ukraine and win for it, to show that it is a brave nation”, Vlada insists. And his sister, as often, adds: “We want to show that to the whole world through our sport.”
During a break of a few days at the Olympic Aquatic Center to which they will return this summer, Vlada and Maryna Aleksiiva showed an often melancholy smile. When they leave with a silver medal in the free duo event, they will see it as a sign of their next success.
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