Ukrainian Olympian sparks outrage after switching allegiance to Russia

Ukraine’s diving federation has stripped a female diver, long viewed as a key figure in Ukraine’s next generation of athletes, of all her national titles and honours after the 23-year-old Olympian abruptly changed her sporting allegiance to Russia, a move that has stunned Ukrainian sport in the midst of the ongoing war.

Sofiia Lyskun, a two-time Olympian and one of Ukraine’s most decorated divers in recent years, confirmed her decision in an interview with Russia’s Izvestia newspaper this week, saying she no longer believed she could grow under Ukrainian coaches and saw stronger career prospects in Moscow.

The federation said she made the switch without informing her coaches, national officials or Ukraine’s sports ministry, calling her silence an “unacceptable betrayal.”

“Such steps discredit not only an individual athlete, but the entire team of Ukraine fighting every day to represent our country,” the federation said. It added that it will ask World Aquatics and other governing bodies to impose a formal “sports quarantine,” which could sideline her under rules for nationality changes during geopolitical conflict.

Russian and Belarusian athletes have been barred from World Aquatics competitions since the 2022 war, though some were allowed to compete as neutrals at the Paris Olympics under strict conditions. Lyskun, however, is pursuing full representation of Russia — a rare and explosive step for a Ukrainian athlete since the war began.

Born in Luhansk in Eastern Ukraine, a city engulfed in conflict since 2014, Lyskun moved to Kyiv as a teenager and rose quickly through Ukraine’s diving ranks. She amassed medals at nearly every major international competition: team gold at the 2018 European Championships in Glasgow, Youth Olympic silver in Buenos Aires, multiple World Aquatics podium finishes, and most recently, 10-meter synchro gold with Kseniia Bailo at the 2024 European Championships in Belgrade.

Lyskun competed in the 10-meter platform at both the Tokyo and Paris Olympics, finishing 16th and 11th, and was widely seen as a cornerstone of Ukraine’s next generation of divers.

Speaking to Izvestia, she criticized Ukraine’s coaching structure, saying that all of her coaches had backgrounds as gymnasts or trampoline specialists. “How can someone from a completely different field teach you anything? Over the past few years in sports in Ukraine, I realised I wasn’t growing,” she said.

Reaction in Ukraine has been swift and harsh, with National Olympic Committee president Vadym Gutzeit denouncing Lyskun’s decision as “simply a betrayal.”

By Nazrin Sadigova