“The boys never had a gun in their hands, always just a ball”: Ukrainian internationals in Großwallstadt
Bild: Ilkay Karakurt
Repel the Russian attack: Some Ukrainian athletes have exchanged their sports equipment for weapons. The Ukrainian national handball team has the same goal – but has taken a different path.
AWhen the handball players from Motor Zaporizhia get on the plane back home after a game in Poland, Russian tanks are already on the border with Ukraine, but peace still reigns. A few hours later, the crew landed in a hail of bombs. It is February 24th, the first day of the Russian offensive. They don’t even get as far as Zaporizhia in southeastern Ukraine. “Because the airport was shelled, we had to turn around and land in Kyiv,” says Gennady Komok. The capital is also under fire at this time. “We then organized a bus to come home.”
Komok is a goalkeeper for the leaders in Ukraine’s Superliga and he captains the country’s national handball team, which has been attacking Russia for more than a month, which has seen children’s hospitals and residential areas shelled. Komok has to think about that when he talks to German journalists. Actually, says the almost two-meter-tall keeper, he didn’t want to leave the Ukraine at all. But when the invitation came to take the national team to the training camp in Großwallstadt, he took his wife Katja and their two children, packed a small bag and got on a westbound bus. Getting her to safety was the most important thing.
