A two-time European weightlifting champion, who was one step away from a medal at the Olympics, was killed in action.

Oleksandr Pielieshenko, an Olympic participant and two-time European weightlifting champion, was killed in the battles with the Russian occupiers. The 30-year-old defender went on his last mission on the night of May 5-6.

"It is with great sadness that we inform you that the heart of Honored Master of Sports of Ukraine, two-time European weightlifting champion Oleksandr Pielieshenko has stopped beating today. We express our sincere condolences to the family and everyone who knew Oleksandr!" the Weightlifting Federation said.

Pielieshenko is a native of Petrovo-Krasnosilne in the Luhansk region, which is currently occupied by Russian forces.

Oleksandr took fourth place at the 2015 World Championships in Houston and then came up one step short of the podium at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio. But in Europe, the Ukrainian had no equal for the next two years.

Luhanets won the continental championship in 2016 and then in 2017. But in 2018, he was suspended from the competition due to a positive doping test. The banned substance chlorthalidone was found in Pielieshenko's body. The weightlifter's sentence ended in 2026.

But from the first days of the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022, Oleksandr took up arms and joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine. For two years, he managed to fight in many hot spots, but on the night of May 5-6, the champion and defender was gone.

"He was a man with a capital letter, there is no such thing and there will never be... He wanted to live, he loved life, but fate had other plans...", Nataliia Balueva reacted to Oleksandr's death.

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Russian invasion of UkraineWar in UkraineWeightlifting