We will be happy to see our athletes on the podiums, but I don't want to make predictions – Ukrainian sports minister Bidny

Minister of Youth and Sports of Ukraine Matviy Bidny has said Ukraine will be happy with any victories of Ukrainian athletes at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo (Italy).

"Today we have 30 licenses. At all the last Winter Olympic Games we won a maximum of one medal, so I think we can track the trend and extrapolate to today’s conditions. Frankly speaking, the context does not allow us to talk about any rapid development. We will be happy if we see our athletes on the podiums, but I do not want to make any predictions. The Olympics are such competitions where an athlete can unexpectedly get a second wind and he will be able to surpass himself. I do not want to cast a spell, but we will be happy with any victories of our athletes," said Bidny in an exclusive interview with the Interfax-Ukraine agency, answering the question of what his realistic expectations are from Ukrainian athletes at the 2026 Olympics.

When asked whether the Ukrainian House will operate in Italy, as it was in Paris-2024, the minister drew attention to the fact that there will be six locations in Italy, where all sports competitions are distributed, and it was decided that there was no point in doing any one location, because it would not be able to attract so much attention anyway.

"We agreed that this time we will concentrate on preparing for Los Angeles-2028," he added.

In addition, when asked whether there is a need to increase the prize money for Olympic awards or introduce any additional motivational measures, he noted that the prize money does not change, but they are fixed in dollars, so this is definitely not the time to revise them upwards.

"In addition, they are among the best, as far as I know, in the world. In fact,