GOLD AND BLUE

Ukrainian Biathlete Pulls Out of Paralympic Race After Father Captured by Russians

Proud Ukraine is No. 2 on the medal table at the Paralympic Winter Games in Beijing, but for one biathlete the news from home was too much to take.

Ukrainian athletes are fighting just as bravely at the Paralympic Winter Games as the friends and families they left behind, but for one biathlete, the news from home was just too much to take. Anastasiia Laletina, 19, pulled out of her middle-distance sitting race Tuesday morning after hearing that her father, a soldier in the Ukrainian army, had been captured by the Russian invaders. “Her father is a soldier in the Ukrainian army and (was taken) prisoner by Russian soldiers. They beat him,” said team spokeswoman Natalia Harach. “She was very upset and couldn’t take part in the race.” Despite the harrowing news from Ukraine, where Vladimir Putin’s army is shelling civilians in towns and cities, Ukrainian athletes won nine Paralympic medals Tuesday, leaving them second in the medal table. They included a clean sweep for Iryna Bui, Oleksandra Kononova, and Liudmyla Liashenko in the standing middle-distance biathlon race. “We are here to fight for Ukraine, with Ukraine and in the name of Ukraine,” Bui, 26, told reporters. Russia’s team at the Paralympics were sent home last week after the International Paralympic Committee finally bowed to public pressure to ban them after the invasion of Ukraine.