Summer racing
The 2009 World Rowing Championships in Poznan, Poland, saw Ukraine’s adaptive rowing
team dominate results with a stunning three medals (two gold and one silver) and two
World Best Times.
Iryna Kyrychenko, a former member of the 2006
Paralympic Nordic skiing team, is now a member of the
trunk and arms double sculls (TAMix2x) with crewmate
Dmytro Ivanov. In Poznan, they triumphed over the 2007
World Champions from Brazil by a mere 0.86 seconds to
set a new World Best Time of 4:03.96. During the world
championship final, Kyrychenko remained confident
even when Brazil began to overtake them. “We stayed
strong and calm. It’s a great pleasure to be the World
Champions, but it is even more pleasing when a record
result happens. That brings strong desire to work more,
because we still have a lot to do,” says Kyrychenko, who
placed sixth in 2007 with Ivanov and eighth at the 2008
Beijing Paralympic Games with a different partner.
recently been admitted into the summer Paralympic
programme. When she began, the impairment in her
thoracic vertebrae was a challenge to row with. “The
trunk and arms double involves work with your back. At
the beginning my back could not stand this, there was
pain in all parts of the spine. I thought that this kind of
sport is not for me, that my back would not bear this. But
as the time went by, step by step I strengthened and built
up my back with a lot of exercises stretching the spine.”
The rise of Kyrychenko to the top in adaptive rowing
might never have happened. After retiring from
skiing, she received an invite from the Ukraine
Rowing Federation to give a try to the sport that had
Kyrychenko is now hooked on the sport and sees the
advantages compared to skiing. “There is no need to fall
down and it is not scary like in skiing where you race
with enormous speed down from a hill into a narrow
curve.” The 48-year-old mother of two sons (aged 19
and 15) has now set her sights on making the podium
at the 2012 London Paralympic Games.
