A complete of 126 Ukrainian athletes shall be competing at this yr’s Paris Olympics. With their nation at battle, their participation takes on specific significance. Ukraine’s Nationwide Olympic Committee says greater than 400 registered athletes have been killed since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, whereas many others have put their sporting careers on maintain to serve within the military. As for many who are competing, they are saying the battle is each a stress issue and an extra motivation. In the meantime, some Russian and Belarusian athletes may even be collaborating, however in impartial colors: a neutrality that the Ukrainian aspect has decried as pretend. FRANCE 24’s Gulliver Cragg studies.