Wrestler Iryna Koliadenko wins fifth silver medal for Ukraine at Paris Olymics

The day before, in the Olympic final of freestyle wrestling, Ukrainian wrestler Iryna Koliadenko lost to the Japanese Sakura Motoki. As a result, the athlete brought Ukraine the fifth silver medal at the 2024 Olympic Games.

This is written by Rubryka, referring to the result of the match, Suspilne Sport.

In Paris, the Ukrainian wrestler showed impressive results. For the first time in her career, she made it to the fight for the Olympic "gold."

Koliadenko demonstrated her strengths already on the first day of performances, gaining three consecutive victories. The most significant of these victories was her victory in the semifinals, where she took revenge for her defeat at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. Koliadenko convincingly defeated the leader, representative of Kyrgyzstan Aisulua Tynybekova, with a score of 9:2.

In the final match, Koliadenko met the Japanese Sakura Motoki, the tournament's second seed. Motoki, the reigning world runner-up, showed her strength with three early wins on the first day of competition, including an 11-0 demolition of Canada's Ana Godinez before the end of the first period.

The final fight

• The final clash between Koliadenko and Motoki began with the Ukrainian's advantage. Koliadenko opened the scoring at the end of the second minute when the Japanese received a point for passivity. However, with three attacks before the end of the first period, the Japanese took a 6:1 lead.
• During the break, the Ukrainian team successfully challenged Motoki's last two points in the first period, which made it possible to reduce the score to 4:1.
• However, during the second period, Motoki increased her lead to 12:1. Koliadenko lost the fight prematurely, ending the Olympics with a silver medal.

This result became the highest achievement of Ukrainian female wrestlers at the Olympics since 2004 when Iryna Merleni won gold in the 48 kg category.

This is the third medal for the Ukrainian national team in sports wrestling in Paris. The day before, Parviz Nasibov won silver in the Greco-Roman categories, and Zhan Beleniuk won bronze.

After the match, Koliadenko was asked who her achievement was for; perhaps it was personally dedicated.

"To our hero city Irpin. Because of the people who were there, who survived terrible times — the occupation, and how many lives were destroyed, how many houses were destroyed, including mine, my family's, how many people died — it's very scary. And I want to cheer them up a little with this medal. And for the sake of everyone who cheers for me," the athlete answered.

Koliadenko and her family survived Russia's occupation in February-March 2022 at the beginning of a full-scale invasion.

At that time, the athlete lived in Irpin, where she got an apartment for the Tokyo bronze medal. More precisely, she even got two—she just gave the first one to her coach, Volodymyr Yaremenko.

"I have lived in Irpin for over ten years: I moved here in 2013. We were in the city until March 10, 2022. We had no water, gas, electricity, or food. We have a large family in Irpin, so we tried to help, but we were constantly in the basement under constant fire.

It was difficult to go outside. In addition, we had a grandmother with us, who is almost 80 years old. There were constant strikes nearby, so it is difficult to call that period a life. Every movement and sound at night was perceived as hostile because we thought that the Russians had come to us," the athlete said.

Koliadenko and her family decided to break out of the surrounded Irpin, the western and northern parts of which were already held by the Russians, when they saw the paratroopers of the Russian Federation.

The wrestler took her family to Vinnytsia, and she and her sister went to a training camp in Hungary.

"A few days later, I was informed that my apartment, which was in Dmytrivka, burned down completely after being hit by a Russian projectile. The apartment I received in Irpin for the bronze medal in Tokyo (at the 2020 Olympics – ed.) is also gone. It also was hit by a projectile. As a result, everything broke inside, so there was nothing left. It's good that we left because it's unclear what the consequences would have been," Koliadenko added.

Also, in Irpin, the Russians completely destroyed the children's and youth sports school where the athlete was training. At the end of 2023, plans for a major overhaul were announced. However, the work has not yet been completed.