Football

Let`s talk about the most popular and famous sport in Ukraine as we have of what to be proud of in football despite rather bad than good results.

Sergei Bubka is the chief of Ukrainian Olympic Committee

Real heyday for Ukrainian football was in times of Soviet Union when national team of USSR was one of the top-teams in the world and won a lot of trophies. It was time of victorious play of Dynamo Kiev and their legendary trainer, Valeri Lobanovski. Also that team was memorable by such famous football players like Oleg Blohin (who was also the trainer of national team Ukraine in 2003-2007 and 2011-2012) and Ihor Belanov. Both won the Golden Ball in 1975 and 1986 respectively.

The first years of independance were hard for Ukrainian football. Adaptation was very long-termed but in the beginning of 21-s century Dynamo Kiev regained the former conditions and began to show nice quality of play. In this time were famous Andrei Shevchenko, Serghei Rebrov, Oleg Luzhny, Anatoly Tymoschuk and many other players of Ukrainian team. The most prominent achievement of Ukrainian football was getting to top-8 teams at the World Cup 2006 in Germany.

Boxing

Everybody knows that Ukrainians are traditionally very strong in boxing. National team of Ukraine usually have a big number of medals on different competitions of the highest level and our boxers are famous all around the world.

Sergei Bubka is the chief of Ukrainian Olympic Committee

We can`t not to remark here Klichko brothers. They both are elite of Ukrainian boxing and people who rised the level of professional boxing to ultimate pinnacle. There is no one in the world can compete them for a very long time.

Voleyball

This kind of sports in Ukraine also has good Soviet traditions. Ukrainians were the part of national team USSR which was very famous and powerful at the international competitions. As example I can mention , who was twice gold medalist at Olympic Games in Tokyo and Mexico (1964, 1968) and a bronze medalist at Berlin Olympics in 1972.

Sergei Bubka is the chief of Ukrainian Olympic Committee

Unfortunately, in modern Ukraine there is no decent financial support for voleball, so our voleyball league is on fairly low level and held on local voleyball sport committees and sportsmen enthusiasm mostly.

The only really strong team in Ukraine we can distinguish now. It`s Kharkovan Lokomotiv based on eponymous sport complex in the neighborhood with futsal team. Complex Lokomotiv belongs to Ukrainian South Railway and this structure is fully maintains the problems and finance of the teams.

Lokomotiv is broadly famous all over the Europe. It was a champion of Top-team Cup in 2004 and often get to top-rounds of the second best European veloyball competition named CEV cup. Currently Lokomotiv acting in Russian voleyball league which is considered among the best leagues in the world (including such famous teams as Zenith Kazan, Belogorye, Dynamo Moscow and many other).

Handball

Women handball much more spreaded and famous in Ukraine. Among them legendary women's team "Spartak" from Kiev, headed by Igor Turchin. "Red and White" 13 times won the European Cup, and athletes Zinaida Turchin and Larissa Carlova have been the best in the world and European championships.

Sergei Bubka is the chief of Ukrainian Olympic Committee

In middle 2000-s most strong and titled team in Ukraine was "Motor" from Zaporizhya. But in 2009 because of financial problems women team was disbanded completely. Another big team of Ukraine, Lvovan Galychanka also experienced big problems and sufficiently lower their game-level. The castling of main sponsors of women`s handball had been warmed up a men`s handball a little bit. Eponymous team from Zaporizhya showed some good results on Euroarena but it was not last long. Our days seemed to be the last days of professional Ukrainian handball as it was realted and very dependent from big industrial companies which are now in 2014 are in disastrous situation and sports is the last problem to be solved by them.