“Today, no,” he said with a wave of his hand. “I ask the athletes in the morning, ‘Did you sleep?’ I ask another, ‘Did you sleep?’ They say, ‘No, no.’ The have dull, sad faces. The mood is very difficult. We are all thinking of home.”
Sushkevych called the operation to transport the delegation of 54, including athletes, coaches and staff, to China during an invasion a small miracle. But now he has the reverse task. When the games end on Sunday, he must get everyone out of China.
But to where? Returning a large group to a country under siege is unlikely at the moment, so Sushkevych, his staff and his wife, Yuliia, spend much of their time devising parallel plans to move everyone safely to an undetermined European country, as a kind of staging ground.
“For how long?” he asked. “Days? Weeks? Do we stay in hotels, and how do we pay for that? We don’t have the money. We don’t have the answers yet.”
Along with the International Paralympic Committee, they were also organizing an unusual and solemn demonstration for peace at the three athletes’ villages, most likely on Thursday.
Sushkevych, 67, had polio as a child and moves about in a wheelchair. A lifelong advocate for people with disabilities, he was a Paralympic swimmer and a member of Ukraine’s parliament. He spent the last three years as a commissioner of the government department responsible for the rights of people with disabilities.