As criticism of the International Olympic Committee continues to mount following Vladyslav Heraskevych’s disqualification for wearing a tribute helmet to fallen Ukrainian athletes, Dakar Rally and WRC great Ari Vatanen has also given his support to the skeleton racer.

Heraskevych was disallowed from competing in the Winter Olympics because of his helmet bearing the images of 24 athletes and coaches who were killed by Russian invasion, which the IOC said was a violation of rules on political expressions. Both parties couldn’t reach a compromise by the time of the skeleton events on February 12, leading to his disqualification.

Since then, the IOC has received a deluge of condemnation from other Ukrainians and supporters overseas. Ukrainian Olympians have written messages of solidarity on their gear or protested after their events. In the most recent example on Wednesday, freestyle skier Anhelina Brykina gave a more direct message by writing the phrase “Слава ЗСУ!” (“Slava ZSU!”, or “Glory to the AFU!”) on her skis for aerials qualifying.

Vatanen called Heraskevych’s DSQ “the price of dignity”. In turn, he condemned the “moral bankruptcy of the IOC” for the verdict.

“Alina Perehudova, 14-year-old weightlifter, was killed with her mother in Mariupol. Her brother who ran after them was shot by a Russian sniper,” he continued. Peregudova, a U17 national weightlifting champion and a candidate to qualify for the 2024 Summer Olympics, was killed by the Russian siege of Mariupol in 2022; she is among those depicted on Heraskevych’s helmet.

“When do we awake?”

The four-time Dakar Rally winner (1987, 1989–1991) and 1981 World Rally Champion, who later served in European Parliament from 1999 to 2009, has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine long before the invasion began in 2022.

He is a friend of then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, meeting him on various occasions during his tenure as an MEP in the 2000s. Vatanen also invariably commented on Vladimir Putin’s increasingly authoritarian tendencies, such as in 2008 when he “handed over” the presidency to Dmitry Medvedev—who won in a landslide despite barely campaigning during the election compared to his opponents and receiving significantly more TV coverage—before shadowing him as his Prime Minister. After the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, he lobbied for the inaugural Russian Grand Prix to be canceled, though it wouldn’t happen until the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Vatanen is not the only Dakarian to comment on the controversy. Jan Brabec, who did the Dakar Rally on a bike from 2018 to 2025, also gave his support to Heraskevych since he found it similar to the helmets he wore at Dakar honoring Czech World War II pilots.

Featured image credit: Jaanus Ree / Red Bull Content Pool