In August 2024, Russian and Ukrainian media reported an error made by the Eurosport TV channel - it was claimed that on its website the birthplace of gymnast Maria Vysochanskaya, who participated in the Paris Olympics, was designated as “Lvov (Russia).” We decided to check if this is actually true.
On August 10, many sports and socio-political publications wrote about a gross error on the channel’s website. Among them are Russian "Sport Express" And "Arguments and facts", as well as Ukrainian Tribune, N.V. And Liga.net.
News about the error on the Eurosport website began to spread on August 10 - the penultimate day of the Olympics, when the Ukrainian team participated in the final rhythmic gymnastics tournament in group all-around. It was then that screenshots of Vysochanskaya’s profile page on Eurosport appeared on the Internet.
“Verified” did not find any pages on the Eurosport website for athletes whose country of birth was indicated in this format. Sometimes the city of birth is not named at all, in rare cases the country is indicated - for example, among Russians, speakers now for other prefabricated
Anna Prakaten, who previously played for Russia and Belarus, and now for the Uzbekistan national team, has “Belarus Minsk” written in her profile, but without parentheses.
At the time of writing the analysis in Vysochanskaya’s profile was indicatedthat her place of birth is Lviv, without specifying the country.
However, they have survived archival copies a page that actually said “Lvov (Russia).” A similar signature is shown on Dutch And Turkish versions of the Eurosport website.
If you look at the page code, it turns out that it provides the “country of birth” option, but it is blocked. In order to put a country in brackets after a city, just uncheck the corresponding box.
Now in the code of Vysochanskaya’s profile page, Ukraine is indicated in brackets, but, obviously, on August 10, the name “Russia” was there. That is, the mistake was made by a Eurosport employee, whether intentionally or not is unknown.
Some Ukrainian users countedthat this cannot be an accident. Firstly, someone wrote “Russia” instead of “Ukraine” in the profile of a Ukrainian athlete. Secondly, the gymnast's family history makes her a potential target for Russian propaganda: her father Oleg Vysochansky He is now fighting in the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and in 2014–2015 he defended the Donetsk airport.
Nevertheless, the inscription “Lvov (Russia)” in the profile of the Ukrainian athlete is not an invention of Russian propaganda, but a real error on the Eurosport website, which was subsequently corrected without any comments from the TV channel.
Cover photo: social networks
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