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A total of 126 Ukrainian athletes will be competing at this year’s Paris Olympics. With their country at war, their participation takes on particular importance. Ukraine’s National Olympic Committee says more than 400 registered athletes have been killed since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, while many others have put their sporting careers on hold to serve in the army. As for those who are competing, they say the war is both a stress factor and an additional motivation. Meanwhile, some Russian and Belarusian athletes will also be taking part, but in neutral colours: a neutrality that the Ukrainian side has decried as fake. FRANCE 24’s Gulliver Cragg reports.
