World Championship medalist and two-time Ukrainian Olympian Igor Chervynskiy has been “seriously wounded” in his country’s ongoing war with Russia, the Ukrainian Swimming Federation and fellow Olympian Sergiy Fesenko report to SwimSwam.

The 43-year-old was serving a combat mission on the front lines of the ongoing war when he was injured. While the exact nature of his injury has not been described, a photo shows him in a hospital bed with bandages on both legs and a metal medical device on his left leg. Fesenko says that he was hit by munitions dropped from a Russian drone.

Courtesy: Ukrainian Swimming Federation

Chervynskiy was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine, the country’s 6th largest-city with a pre-war population of 1.4 million. He was born there in 1981 when it was part of the USSR. That city near the Russian border has been a focal point of fighting in the war; as of April 2024, the Ukrainian government reported that almost a quarter of the city had been damaged or destroyed.

Chervynskiy was the 2003 World Championship silver medalist in the 1500 free and bronze medalist in the 800 free in Barcelona, part of Ukraine’s great distance swimming tradition. He was also the 1999 (SCM) and 2000 (LCM) European Champion in the 1500 free, two of five European medals in that event; a three-time World University Games Champion, the 2000 World Short Course Championship runner-up; and a three-time European Junior Champion in 1998 and 1999.

Prior to the start of the war, he was working as a swim coach at the youth sports school Spartak. Last year, at 42, and after two years of serving in the war, he won the Ukrainian Championship in the 5,000-meter swim in a 50 meter pool.

Fesenko called Chervynskiy “the hero of Ukraine” and is spearheading a fundraising effort to get him to the United States for rehabilitation (details here). Fesenko has been active in several war relief efforts, including convincing the Indian government to send war supplies to Ukraine, and finding avenues for young Ukrainian swimmers to train in other countries using relationships formed during his own elite swimming career.

Fesenko was on the 2004 Olympic Team with Chervynskiy and his father, Sergey Fesenko senior, was a 1980 Olympic gold medalist in the 200 fly for the USSR. Fesenko currently lives in the United States.

Fesenko says that he is one of three known national swimmers who are currently fighting for Ukraine in the war.

With war engulfing the nation, including estimates of around 700,000 Ukrainians currently actively fighting at the front, several athletes have been involved in the war. Earlier this month, former Ukrainian National Team hockey player Oleksandr Matviychuk was seriously injured after being shot; Eugine Obendinskiy, ex-captain of the Ukrainian National Water Polo Team, was killed in a bombing; and a Ukrainian National Swimming Team coach spent two hours trapped under rubble when a building she was sheltering under was hit by a missile.

Estimates of total fatalities from the war vary widely by source, but recent estimates by the US-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies reports that Russia has suffered approximately 250,000 deaths and 950,000 casualties in the war since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, while Ukraine has sustained an estimated 60,00-100,000 killed and up to 400,000 total casualties, including injured.

Photographs

Fesenko provided these photographs via Chervynskiy; SwimSwam could not verify the authenticity of the pictures.

Courtesy Igor Chervynski/Sergey Fesenko

Courtesy Igor Chervynski/Sergey Fesenko

Courtesy Igor Chervynski/Sergey Fesenko

Courtesy Igor Chervynski/Sergey Fesenko

Courtesy Igor Chervynski/Sergey Fesenko

Courtesy Igor Chervynski/Sergey Fesenko

Courtesy Igor Chervynski/Sergey Fesenko

NORTHFIELD, Minn. – The Carleton College men’s cross country and track & field programs had the maximum five student-athletes selected to the College Sports Communicators (CSC) Academic All-District Team for 2024-25.
 
Roy Llewellyn ’26 and Gabe Nichols ’26 took home their second consecutive honor, while Josh Meier ’25, Indy Lyness ’26, and Soren Kaster ’27 secured Academic All-District recognition for the first time.
 

To be nominated for the Academic All-District Team, a student-athlete must have a cumulative grade point average of at least 3.50; must be at least a sophomore in academic and athletic standing; and must have turned in a top-50 individual performance in the region (for cross country, this would be at the regional meet, for track & field, this would be based off of TFRRS performance list rankings for the region.)
 
Llewellyn, a linguistics and Spanish double major, ranked inside the North Region’s top-50 in three events this year: 24th in cross country (25:07.6), 44th in the outdoor 10,000-meter run (32:16.36), and 47th in the outdoor 5000-meter run (14:54.68). He secured his second career All-Region award after placing 24th at the North Region Cross Country Championships and was an individual qualifier for the NCAA Cross Country Championships where he finished 157th. Llewellyn has collected nine All-MIAC awards – including two conference relay titles – along with All-Conference Honorable Mention on two occasions.
 
Nichols, a political science and international relations major, also raced as an individual qualifier at the NCAA Cross Country Championships, finished 125th overall. He ranked inside the region’s top-25 in five events: 10th in the indoor 3000-meter run (8:18.19), 14th in both the indoor mile (4:13.01) and outdoor 1500-meter run (3:51.40), 17th in cross country (25:00.7), and 23rd in the outdoor 5000-meter run (14:34.50). Nichols is a five-time All-Region honoree, including cross country this past fall. He is a six-time MIAC champion, including the 2025 conference title for the outdoor 5000-meter run. Nichols has earned All-MIAC status 14 times in his career in addition to another three All-Conference Honorable Mention performances.
 
Meier, a computer science major, ranked in the region’s top-20 in three events last year. He was 16th for the indoor 800-meter distance (1:55.75) and raced for Carleton’s indoor (3:26.55) and outdoor (3:18.78) 4×400-meter relays that both ranked 11th in the region. Meier earned All-MIAC recognition 12 times in his career, including four All-Conference nods — with a conference title in the indoor 800-meter run on his résumé — plus eight All-Conference Honorable Mention performances.
 
After not competing during the indoor track season, Lyness ranked 47th in the region for the outdoor 800-meter run (1:55.82). The computer science and mathematics double major has won three conference track titles in his career and has taken home All-MIAC recognition 11 times, including the All-Conference award seven times plus All-Conference Honorable Mention four times.
 
Kaster, a computer science major, ranked inside the region’s top-25 in five events this year. He was 12th in the indoor heptathlon, breaking the school record with a total f 4,745 points. He was 14th in the outdoor decathlon (6,121 points), 19th for the indoor pole vault (4.56m) and 22nd in the outdoor pole vault (4.55m) and javelin (50.17m). He was the MIAC runner-up in both the heptathlon and indoor pole vault before taking fourth in the decathlon. Overall, he owns All-MIAC recognition five times in his career.
 
Nichols was selected to advance to the national ballot with first-, second- and third-team Academic All-America® honorees to be announced July 16, 2025.
 
 

WALTHAM, Mass. – Four members of the Bentley women’s track and field team were named to the College Sports Communicators Academic All-District team for their combined performances on the track and in the classroom.

The quartet are Caitlin Burmester, Mia Bonner, Molly Capece and Hannah Croteau.

Burmester advanced to the ballot for Academic All-America consideration.

Burmester, a standout for both the track and cross country teams, majored in both accounting and liberal studies and was named the NE10 Female Scholar Athlete of the Year among a number of awards.

Bonner is an accounting major and competes in jumps for the track and field team. She earned an eighth place finish in the triple jump at the NE10 Outdoor Championships.

Capece was a sophomore in 2024-25 and majored in quantitative economics. She ran track this spring and cross country in the fall, which included finishing 17^th at the NE10 Championships.

Croteau majors in computer information systems and competes in hurdles. She earned a 12^th place finish in the 400 hurdles at the NE10 Outdoor Championships.