Thirty-nine young athletes from Kharkiv, in eastern Ukraine, have been welcomed since Saturday in Lille, in the North, for a “respite stay” while their city is regularly under bombs. These 23 boys and 16 girls, aged 11 to 16, practice judo, football or rhythmic and sports gymnastics.
This stay, which will end on April 29, should help them “no longer think, for a few days, too strongly about what is happening in Ukraine”, hoped the mayor of Lille, Martine Aubry, during the ceremony on Sunday. welcoming this delegation. In addition to training in local sports structures, the program of the stay is punctuated by a discovery of the capital of Flanders and visits to emblematic places in the surrounding area, as well as a LOSC football match, 4th in Ligue 1.