Bronze medalist, Pavlo Bal of Team Ukraine celebrates following the Men's H5 Road Race on day eight of the Paris 2024 Summer Paralympic Games in Paris, France, on Sep. 5, 2024. (Michael Steele/Getty Images)
Ukrainian athletes have won 82 medals at the 2024 Summer Paralympic Games in Paris, securing seventh place in the medal score, as the competition wrapped up on Sept. 8.
Ukraine’s medal count includes 22 gold, 28 silver, and 31 bronze medals.
China topped the list this year with 220 medals, followed by the U.K., the U.S., the Netherlands, Brazil, and Italy.
The Ukrainian team was represented by 140 athletes – the smallest number in 16 years.
Training amid air raid alerts and ongoing Russian attacks, Ukrainian Paralympians qualified for Paralympic events in 17 out of 22 sports.
For the first time, Ukraine competed in hand cycling and boccia, with Ukrainian athletes winning medals in these disciplines in their debut attempt.
Ukrainians reached the final in goalball for the first time, broke several world and European records in swimming and athletics, and competed in sitting volleyball for the first time in eight years, with two veterans of the Russian-Ukrainian war on the team.
"You cannot imagine the strength of spirit and will to win that we have put into our boys and girls," Valeriy Sushkevych, the president of the National Paralympic Committee of Ukraine, told Suspilne.
"We are exhausted, but we are winners. And Ukraine is definitely winning."
Kateryna Hodunova is a News Editor at the Kyiv Independent. She previously worked as a sports journalist in several Ukrainian outlets and was the deputy chief editor at Suspilne Sport. Kateryna covered the 2022 Olympics in Beijing and was included in the Special Mentions list at the AIPS Sport Media Awards. She holds a bachelor's degree in political journalism from Taras Shevchenko University and a master's degree in political science from the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.Read more