Matt Majendie speaks to three competitors about the challenges of trying to stay at the top level while being caught up in conflict.
Iryna Klymets was in the corridor of the block where she lives when the night time Russian shelling struck. A siren had just sounded warning of the imminent attack, and now whenever any sort of alarm sounds it instantly sparks fear within the Ukrainian hammer thrower.
For four years since the Russian invasion began, she has continued to train and somehow qualify for the likes of the Paris Olympics – in that case sealing her place just days after the death of her father – and last year’s World Championships in Tokyo. That she is able to survive the hardships, let alone train at all and be mentally and physically ready for competition, is nothing short of a miracle.
“For me, the worst thing is when the alarm is at night,” she says of her life in Ukraine. “Now any alarm is stress for me. And this winter, due to the shelling of power plants, we had no light for 16 hours a day and no heating. It’s very difficult when it’s minus 20 degrees outside.”
In addition, her coach has been on military service, meaning he cannot leave the country to support her for any significant period of time. “Also, all the funding in the country is directed towards the war, so I don’t have the opportunity to go and train somewhere in warm countries,” she adds. “And because of constant anxiety and enemy attacks, training is often disrupted. There’s constant alarms about power outages and the harsh winter with severe frosts. There is fear whenever there is an air raid and we are being attacked. We don’t sleep at night.”
Klymets’ rival athletes were quick to reach out to offer support when the war broke out, while World Athletics has put on training camps where possible ahead of major championships for her and the Ukraine national team. She readily admits the hardship has made her a stronger person but argues that the lack of opportunities for training have also curtailed her results. And, despite peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, both her fear and expectation is that the war – and hence the shelling – will continue for some time hence.
For 800m runner Mohammad Dwedar, his training in the West Bank where the Palestinian lives is consigned to the street.
“Back at home, we don’t have a track, we don’t have anything,” he says. “So, I train in the street with cars and motorcycles and people. This is not the right training for 800m, as you need spikes and a track but people really support me back at home. Life in Palestine and the West Bank is not easy because the occupation is very difficult.”
His federation has supported him for training camps abroad, including one early in 2026 in Germany which was curtailed when he picked up a foot injury. While away from home, Dwedar struggles to read about issues back at home.
“It’s very difficult for me and my life when I see it like this,” he says, “and I’m not feeling good.” But, at the same time, he says he prefers not to focus on the bad but the good instead.
“To represent Palestine is very special for any athlete really and any people in Palestine,” he says. “You know what’s happening and I have a lot of feelings when I’m doing the races, camps and training in my body because I’m feeling happy that I’m doing what I love and feeling sad with what’s happening in Palestine. It’s not easy to go far away from family for three or four months. But dreams need a lot of sacrifice.”
And, having enjoyed life-changing experiences at the Paris Olympics and also the most recent World Championships, the university student dares to dream of the ultimate on the world stage in the future.
Of that future, he adds: “Really in my life I want to do everything in Palestine. I want to give all myself to Palestine. In my dream, I wish I can get Palestine one medal in my life. This is very important for me, thinking: ‘I am the hero, I am the best, I am a champion, I can do this’. That helps mentality about thinking everything positive. This is my dream.”
Failing that, he is studying physical education and wants to do a masters to enable him to shape the next generation of track and field talent back at home.
Like Dwedar, Perina Lokure Nakang also competes over 800m but, in her case, she knows she will never return home to south Sudan, where she fled the conflict there as a youngster. For her, it is still not safe to go back to the land of her birth.
She was seven years old when she crossed the border to Kenya with her aunt at the behest of her parents who stayed behind with her other siblings.
Tragically, her father was later killed, while she was not reunited with her mother and siblings until years later. Now in her early twenties, she partly recalls the journey to and life at Kakuma refugee camp while the rest is from the stories retold to her by her aunt.
“We travelled for days and there was no food,” she says. “Many people died but I managed to come to Kenya.”
In camp, she played football and basketball but also took up athletics for the first time, coaxed to do so in the 100m and 200m initially by a coach who spotted her running talent. In due course, it was suggested she make the step up to the 800m by 2007 world champion in the event, Janeth Jepkosgei, who would in turn go on to become her coach and still fulfils that role to this day.
“It was God saying: ‘Perina you love to run, go and run’. So I said: ‘No problem, I will run, I will try my best’,” she says. “And now run for refugees all over the world.”
Like fellow middle-distance runner Dwedar, she competed in both Paris and Tokyo in the past two seasons as part of the refugee team both at an Olympics and World Championships. She competed in the heats of both, including racing against the likes of eventual Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson in Paris in the summer of 2024.
She has also been training at Eliud Kipchoge’s Kenyan base and she readily admits: “Athletics has come to change your life. For me, athletics is good, with it you can go far”.
Alongside the running, she also studies and is making her way through high school. Her favourite subject is biology. As for her ambitions, she says: “Let me finish school but I’d also like to coach with Janet to train athletes and help her. But, first, I want to run to make the most of this opportunity.”