Ukrainian double European champion weightlifter Oleksandr Pielieshenko has died on the frontline of his country’s war with Russia.
The 30-year-old won European Championship gold in 2016 and 2017, also finishing fourth in the 85kg category at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
Pielieshenko joined Ukraine’s armed forced shortly after Russia invaded in 2022, the country’s Olympic Committee said.
His Instagram account documented the dramatic shift in Pielieshenko’s life from lifting weights in the gym to combat training and deployment to the front lines.
Pictures show the former Olympian in army camouflage gear firing guns and mortars in combat.
Ukrainian double European champion weightlifter Oleksandr Pielieshenko, 30, has died on the frontline of his country’s war with Russia
His wife Diana posted an emotional Instagram tribute after finding out news of his death
Pielieshenko finished fourth in the under 85kg competition at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games
His wife Diana Pielieshenko posted a video of their wedding dance from 2021, writing: ‘I am thankful for everything!
‘It hurts me very much that I could have said different things in one situation or another and it’s good that I was able to talk to you before you left.
‘I know that you have always been my wall. Thank you for the five years but you didn’t have to leave so soon. You loved movement and life very much.’
Pictures on his Instagram account showed the couple together over Christmas and New Year before he returned to service.
‘It is with great sadness that we announce that today the heart of the honoured master of sports of Ukraine, two-time European weightlifting champion Oleksandr Pielieshenko, stopped beating,’ the Ukrainian Weightlifting Federation said on Facebook.
National coach Viktor Slobodianiuk said: ‘War takes the best of us… This is a very heavy loss for the entire weightlifting community of Ukraine. Heroes do not die.’
The couple married in 2021 and had been together for five years
Pielieshenko regularly posted Instagram pictures from the frontline as he fought the Russians
He signed up for the Ukrainian armed forced shortly after Russia invaded in February 2022
Pielieshenko was banned from competing until 2026 because of a failed drugs test in 2018 that detected the masking agent chlorthalidone. He was previously banned between 2013 and 2015.
The Associated Press said more than 400 Ukrainian athletes and officials have been killed in the war.
