ABSTRACT
The Ukrainian SSR offered a significant contribution to the achievements of the USSR’s national teams in the Olympic Games, and the Soviet Union left a strong sporting legacy in Ukraine, which the independent country has sought to utilise since the 1990s. Whereas former victories against the United States were portrayed as a milestone of communism over capitalism, subsequently they would be conveyed as a proof of strength of the Ukrainian independent state. The quantity and quality of medals awarded to Ukrainian athletes at the Olympic Games can be applied as a point of substantiation. Conversely, in the Winter Games, Ukrainians remained competitive only in the biathlon and underperformed in freestyle skiing; and in addition, the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio demonstrated various flaws of Ukrainian sport, where only two gold medals were secured. The causes may be found in the decline in grassroots and mass sports in post-Soviet Ukraine. In fact, the young state has withdrawn from the cult of healthy lifestyle in society. This being so, this chapter examines the causality for success and failure in this respect, focusing on the lack of funding, the emigration of athletes and coaches, the adoption of Soviet style bureaucracy and pressure on athletes, the intervention of politics in sports, and finally, doping.
