Ukrainian Olympic Committee chief and former pole vault champion Sergiy Bubka on Wednesday called for an end to violence in his country as Ukrainian athletes struggled to focus on competing at the Sochi Winter Games.
“I want to bring Olympic Truce to my country,”- Bubka said on Twitter. “Dialogue is power, violence is weakness.”
“Our athletes are competing hard in Sochi, but peacefully and with honor. Violence has no place in the world,” said Bubka, an adviser to the president of Ukraine and an Executive Board member of the International Olympic Committee.
“I think they should stop it for the Olympics … Now in Ukraine they’re going mad,” said Dmytro Mytsak, a Ukrainian giant slalom skier from Kyiv.
