The International Olympic Committee has banned a Ukrainian skeleton racer from wearing a helmet bearing the faces of friends and fellow athletes who have been slaughtered by Russian forces.
After donning the helmet at a training session on Monday, Vladyslav Heraskevych, 27, was told the gear violated rules against making political statements — but the athlete said it was a memorial to the fallen Ukrainians.
“The feeling that the IOC is betraying those athletes who were part of the Olympic movement, not allowing them to be honored on the sports arena where these athletes will never be able to step again,” he posted to X. “Despite precedents in modern times and in the past when the IOC allowed such tributes, this time they decided to set special rules just for Ukraine.”
The International Olympic Committee has banned a Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych from wearing a helmet bearing the faces of his fellow athletes who have been slaughtered by Russian forces. AFP via Getty Images“We are preparing an official request to the IOC and will fight for the right to compete in this exact helmet.”
The committee’s decision to call the helmet a political statement came despite the Olympics itself banning Russia from participating in the 2026 Winter Olympics because of its ongoing full-scale war on Ukraine.
IOC spokesman Mark Adams on Tuesday said the committee offered a “compromise” — allowing the Ukrainian to instead wear a simply black arm band in the fallen athletes’ memories.
“He has expressed himself on social media and in the training and, as you know, we will not stop him expressing himself in press conferences,” he said.
But Heraskevych told reporters in Italy that he declined to wear the band, instead pledging to wear the touching helmet on race day, according to Canada’s CBC News.
Heraskevych’s helmet features 24 fallen Ukrainian athletes. Getty Images
Heraskevych taking part in a training session at the Olympics on Feb. 10, 2026. AFP via Getty Images“We will continue to fight for the right to compete in this helmet,” Heraskevych said. “I truly believe that we didn’t violate any law and any rules.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a post to X thanked Heraskevych “for reminding the world of the price of our struggle” in a post to X.
“This truth cannot be inconvenient, inappropriate, or called a ‘political demonstration at a sporting event,'” he wrote. “It is a reminder to the entire world of what modern Russia is.”
Heraskevych vowed to wear the helmet anyways on race day despite the IOC’s ruling. AP“And this is what reminds everyone of the global role of sport and the historic mission of the Olympic movement itself – it is all about peace and for the sake of life. Ukraine remains faithful to this. Russia proves the opposite,” he added.
In total, there are 24 athletes featured on the helmet, including “figure skater Dmytro Sharpar, who was killed in combat near Bakhmut; Yevhen Malyshev, a 19-year-old biathlete killed by the occupiers near Kharkiv; and other Ukrainian athletes whose lives were taken by Russia’s war,” according to Zelensky.
Ukraine’s Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko condemned the ruling, calling it morally incorrect.
Honoring fallen athletes is “an act of dignity, not politics,” she wrote on X, describing the IOC’s decision as “profoundly wrong”
