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By Kuba Stezycki
WARSAW (Reuters) - Oleg Kuznietsov, the 34-year-old breakdancer from Ukraine, is ready to show that athletes from his nation will fight their own battle to succeed in Paris as the competition is set to make its Olympic debut.
Kuznietsov qualified for Paris in Budapest last month, becoming one of the three Ukrainian dancers to participate in the breaking event alongside Kateryna Pavlenko and Anna Ponomarenko.
"The representation of my country at the Olympic stage is a mission for me," Kuznietsov told Reuters as Ukraine has been fighting off an invasion from Russia since February 2022.
He added, however, that as a dancer during time of war he sometimes feels misunderstood by his peers.
"I don't say there's a lot of hate everyday. But sometimes I get messages like, 'Yo, bro, what are you doing? Go to army or something.' (But) I represent Ukraine on this stage. And for this moment the athletes (are also the) voice of Ukraine.
"We are showing that we fight, that we're going to win. We're still here. We're fighting and we do our best."
Breaking, more commonly known as breakdancing, will be the only new sport in Paris. It joined the programme following the success at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires, the first Olympic event to showcase breaking.
The Olympic breaking tournament will include 32 participants, 16 men and 16 women, with France, Japan and the United States sending the largest number of athletes (four each) to the competition.
Ukraine, together with the Netherlands and China, rank second with three participants each.
"The last two, two and a half years was the pre-selections events (and it) was not the easiest time because of the war," Kuznietsov said.
"Sometimes it really punches you, you don't know what you want or what you can (do). And you are not confident at all.
"I don't know if other people understand it, but for Ukraine, 140 athletes got the ticket to the Olympics... And for each of them this is crazy, with the current situation."
Kuznietsov has been preparing for the Olympics in neighbouring Poland, where he has lived since 2013. But many Ukrainian athletes, like the swimmers, have been practicing in their war-torn home country, he said.
"A part of the sports school was destroyed, but they still practice in there," Kuznietsov said.
"Imagine they practice and the alarm starts. So they need to go down to the basement and hide because of the bombing. They stop that practice, and is it fair? I don't think so.
"The Olympics are like fair play, fair game. But I spoke with a lot of athletes in Ukraine and they say, what about fair practice, fair preparation? For Ukrainians now it is really hard to prepare mentally, and also physically."
(Reporting by Kuba Stezycki in Warsaw, writing by Anita Kobylinska in Gdansk; Editing by Christian Radnedge)
