Ukraine’s best-known sports stars, boxing champion Vitali Klitschko and the soccer player Andriy Shevchenko, are both vying for power in Sunday’s parliamentary elections in a bid to send a shockwave through Ukrainian politics.
Heavyweight Klitschko, 41, who fought his last bout last month, leads his aptly named UDAR (“punch”) party, which analysts see as an increasingly serious challenger to the ruling party of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.
Meanwhile Shevchenko, 36, stunned both his fans and commentators when he dramatically hung up his boots after the Euro soccer championships this summer to become a key figure in the pro-business Ukraine Forward party.
Their entry into the election campaign shook up Ukrainian politics, which for the past years has turned into a two-way duel between the factions of Yanukovych and his now jailed rival, former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
According to opinion polls, UDAR could emerge as the main challenger to Yanukovych’s Regions Party in the elections, pushing the Tymoshenko-led coalition into third place with more than 15 percent of the vote.
“The voters are disappointed with the authorities, the opposition and politicians. People need to believe in something and Klitschko has now become the hope,” said Volodymyr Fesenko, director of the Penta centre for political studies.
By contrast, the prospects for Ukraine Forward, led by former Tymoshenko ally Natalya Korolevska, appear less rosy: Polls suggest it will receive a small percentage of the vote and fail to cross the 5 percent threshold into parliament.
Even these fresh faces in the rough-and-tumble world of Ukrainian politics have had to endure a degree of cynicism about their motives. Shevchenko was forced to deny allegations he was being paid for his work.
Campaign posters plastered across Kiev for Ukraine Forward show Shevchenko standing somewhat intimately next to Korolevska, an image that has been the subject of much mockery among Ukrainians.
“Shevchenko’s move into politics has not had the expected effect and I think he many still be thinking about his future in politics,” Fesenko said.
Klitschko’s party, whose full name is the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform, accuses its foe, the Regions Party, of rampant corruption and promises a European future for Ukraine.
“We want to live in a normal, democratic country, where the rule of law works,” the boxer declared during the campaign.
Ukraine Forward has been accused of lacking any coherent program and even being merely a front set up by the Regions Party to soak up potential votes for the opposition — allegations vehemently denied by its leaders.
However, Shevchenko is clearly trying to tap on a sentiment that Ukraine’s political leadership has lost contact with the people.
“I have finished my sporting career and I have returned to Ukraine to live and work there,” said the former AC Milan superstar, who also played for Chelsea, as well as his native Dynamo Kiev.
“I want to live in a prosperous country and not in one that belongs to a few oligarchs and an elite of officials who adopt laws for themselves,” he said.
Shevchenko’s entry into politics was as sudden as it was surprising, but Klitschko, whose brother Wladimir is also a heavyweight boxing champion, has been building up his political base for several years.
Klitschko first become involved in local Kiev politics in 2006, gaining a seat on the city council and twice unsuccessfully running for the post of mayor.
He founded the UDAR party in 2010 and the legislative elections represent its big chance to raise its status from a force in Kiev to a big national player.
He has also angrily rejected rumors that the party has links to the presidency, although it remains unclear if it will forge any anti-Yanukovych alliance with the Tymoshenko bloc after the polls.
For Shevchenko, defeat would be a rare setback in a glittering career, which in 2004 saw him win the coveted Ballon d’Or. However, critics are lining up to say he has made the worst mistake of his life by throwing his weight behind Korolevska.
Both sports stars may seek inspiration from Shevchenko’s former AC Milan partner Kakha Kaladze, who joined the opposition in his native Georgia. Kaladze is set to become energy minister in the new government after its election victory on Oct. 1.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier