SPECIAL REPORT
The big wheels keep on turning through a country that will ride again
Oleksandr Onoshko was a cycling celebrit y in the southern Ukrainian city of Odessa. A for mer professional who had raced across Europe, his career highlight was winning a stage of the Tou r of Turkey in 2005.
“ Ever yone k new Oleksandr,” says sports photographer and amateur racer Iurii Makalis. “He was a kind man, a real professional .” His adopted city of Odessa was one of Uk raine’s cycling heartlands, with t wo professional teams, seven amateur clubs, and a local cafe that was colloquially k nown as the cyclist ’s hub. It was a city that breathed bike racing.
After Onoshko retired, he set up a coaching business in Odessa. He then moved back to his home city of Mariupol in eastern Ukraine and was head coach of the club he had co-founded, Atlelic Cycling Club. His aim was to develop cycling in the city and introduce more children to the sport. He told ever yone he met of his enthusiasm. “He thought 2022 would be a great year for the cycling community in Mariupol,” says his friend Makalis. “It was post-Covid, he could race across Ukraine and Europe again, and he was setting up his ow n club to help youngsters, which was his passion.”
W hen Russia i nvaded Ukraine on 24 Febr uar y, it wasn’t long before Mariupol came under sustained attack from the invaders. “The Russians forced all of Oleksandr ’s young riders to flee to other parts of Ukraine and to Europe, but Oleksandr stayed behind,” explains Makalis.
In March, just a few week s into the war, Onoshko was k illed by Russian shelling in his now-devastated and occupied cit y. Speak ing to me via Telegram – the prefer red app for Ukrainians – Makalis reveals he didn’t find out until May. “It was the third month of the war when a man confirmed to me that Oleksandr was dead.” He takes a gulp to steady his voice. “ There was no internet there so we had no idea .” Onoshko was 40 years old .
Since the outbreak of the war, the cycling scene within the country has been decimated. Races are mostly banned because emergency services are required at battlefields, while cyclists in or close to the conflict zones dare not cycle too far for fear of triggering landmines. Ukrainian cycling, according to 2019 men’s national champion A ndriy Kulyk, “doesn’t exist anymore”.
But remarkably, if you look hard enough, there are green shoots of racing in some communities and steely commitment to rebuild what was once a thriving scene when the war is
