How the Ukraine Cycling Academy are keeping the nation’s cycling dream alive... from Italy
Ukrainian cyclist Danylo Chernomortsev had just turned 16 when Russia began its full-scale invasion of his country in February 2022.
His hometown, the southern city of Mykolaiv, was battered by the invading force’s artillery from day one. “A lot of Russian machines and tanks came to Mykolaiv, tried to surround the city and take it. We watched so many tanks go past our house,” he says. Russia failed to seize Mykolaiv, but for the past two-and-a-bit years, the city has remained one of Vladimir Putin’s key targets.
Ordinary people have paid the price – including one of Chernomortsev’s closest friends Petro Ivanov. “Seven months after the war, my friend, who was 16 like me, was coming back from school when a Russian missile killed him in the centre of the city. No one can replace him.”
Today, Chernomortsev is one of 16 young Ukrainian cyclists racing for the Ukraine Cycling Academy, based in Italy, continuing to pursue their sporting dreams in spite of their country’s uncertain future. But even though the aspiring racers are safe in their new surroundings of northern Italy, the scars of war remain. Yurii Shcherban, now 21, recalls spending the first two months of the invasion in an air-raid shelter in Ternopil, not far from Lviv, and not knowing for several weeks if his soldier father was alive or dead. “We didn’t know what had happened to him; my mum was always saying she hoped he hadn’t gone to the frontline.” His dad returned safe and well – unlike the father of a close friend. “During the first days, my friend’s father was fatally wounded. I remember him being in the shelter with us, and even now it’s hard to realise that we’ll never see him again. It’s really hard psychologically.”
A Lombardy lifeline
Before the invasion, Ukraine had a thriving cycling scene: there was a multitude of UCI-categorised road and track events, a handful of third-tier men’s and women’s Continental teams, and dozens of riders competing across the globe for either domestic or foreign teams. Some, like Mark Padun, were winning WorldTour races. But when Russian tanks stormed across the border in late winter 2022, the pathways to becoming a professional cyclist narrowed in an instant.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Sport, its cycling federation and the UCI realised that they had to keep one avenue open, and thus poured money into the Eurocar Grawe Continental team that had been in existence since 2017 under various names. A rebrand to Ukraine Cycling Academy followed, as did a commitment to developing homegrown talent, and it was agreed that the team would assist juniors on an ad-hoc basis (as many as 70 in 2023), and a select num
