Diana Varinska announced her retirement

Ukraine’s Diana Varinska announced her retirement from competitive gymnastics to Suspilne. The 2020 European champion in the team competition and the 2019 European Games bronze AA and beam medalist competed last at the Tokyo Olympics and then took a break to focus on her health. After the break, she realized she no longer wanted to continue:

“I’m not competing at all anymore, I’m not training. After the Olympic Games, I was tired, then I had surgery, I wanted to recover and resume competing after that but I realized I no longer had enough strength and, most important, desire [to compete], that’s why I decided to end my athletic career.”

Varinska also commented on the result of the Ukrainian women’s team at the 2022 Euros. The reigning European champions placed 12 in the qualification and failed to advance to the team final. They have, however, qualified a team to the upcoming World Championships in Liverpool. Varinska said about the team result:

“I think that this team is much weaker [than the 2020 team was]. The only gymnast who was capable of showing a good result at this competition, I think, was Liza Hubareva. But she was injured, she had surgery before Euros. I don’t thinkshe had enough time to recover and prepare for this competition. Regarding the other girls, they’ve never competed at such a high level before.”

Ukraine indeed sent a very inexperienced team to the competition, with Hubareva being the only veteran who competed on the 2020 team. Another member of that team, Angelina Radivilova, came to Munich as a coach. The team’s training has suffered interruptions due to the war and the gymnasts first had to flee the country and then train separately at various gyms around Europe. 2006-born Yulia Kasianenko, for example, was a part of the Ukrainian delegation that was in Stuttgart when the war broke out, and continued traveling the World Cup circuit while other Ukrainian gymnasts tried to leave Ukraine and find a safe place. Valeria Osipova managed to leave Ukraine and find refuge in France where she competes for Beaucaire club in the French league. The club took in several other Ukrainian gymnasts and their family members.

Ukraine also was not able to filed a full junior team for the competition and sent only two gymnasts, Anna Lashchevska and Anastasiia Zubkova, who placed 5th and 29th in the all-around final. In addition to difficulties like figuring out training arranagements and getting funding, gymnasts have been under immense stress for the past 5.5 months which makes their achievement at the European Championships truly remarkable.

Varinska also told Suspilne that, according to her knowledge, her teammate Anastasia Bachynska stopped training. Bachynska who last competed internationally at the 2021 World Championships and placed 10th in the all-around final there has not made any announcements regarding her career. She was able to flee Ukraine with her mother and siblings in March and was taken in by Beaucaire club for which she competed in the past. She was originally on the nominative list for the Cairo World Cup but was unable to participate due to the war.