Young athletes in northern Ukraine spend their days cross-country skiing through a scorched forest, focused on their form – until a siren inevitably shatters the silence.They respond swiftly but without panic, ditching their skis and following coaches to an underground bomb shelter.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listIt’s an ordinary training session at the complex that produced Ukraine’s first Olympic medallist.Sleeping children no longer dream of Olympic glory in the facility’s bombed-out dormitories, and unexploded ordnance has rendered nearby land off limits. But about 350 kids and teens – some of the nation’s best young cross-country skiers and biathletes – still practise in fenced-off areas amid the sporadic buzz of drones passing overhead, then explosions as they’re shot down.“We have adapted so well — even the children — that sometimes we don’t even react,” Mykola Vorchak, a 67-year-old coach, said. “Although it goes against safety rules, the children have been hardened by the war. Adapting to this has changed them psychologically.”War has taken a heavy toll on Ukrainian sport. Athletes were displaced or called up to fight. Football matches are often interrupted by air raid sirens, so attendance is capped by bomb shelter capacity. Elite skaters, skiers and biathletes usually train abroad, with attacks and frequent blackouts shuttering local facilities.But the government-run Sports Ski Base of the Olympic Reserve is open fo …
