Ukraine's K-4 team forms 'Energy Circle' to help others - "We are one for all, all for one"
Ukraine’s kayak four crew knew there was something special about their bond from the moment they first climbed into the same boat.
As their oars rippled the water surface, the four men, lined up one behind the other, felt a tingle of a new kind of energy that took their breath away.
“Boys, the world will be ours!” one of the kayakers, Dmytro Danylenko, could not help but shout after only a short time on the water.
“We all put down the oars and realised that in 15 years of rowing in fours, no one has felt what we had just felt,” Danylenko told Olympics.com. “Everyone felt it.”
The synergy was perfect from the start, so much so that three years on, they only made one change to their seating order and that was at their first training session. From the start, it was Oleh Kukharyk at the bow, Danylenko second, Ihor Trunov and Ivan Semykin at the back.
Since that fateful first meeting, the four kayakers have become more than a team. They are the “Energy Circle”.
The first Ukrainian men’s team to win a K-4 500m world title and get an Olympic quota, the kayakers not only feed off each other’s energy, but also willingly give it back. With their country under attack, they are fundraising money for rehabilitation and prosthetics for war victims, some of which include their friends and fellow athletes.
Members of Ukraine's K-4 team from left to right: Ivan Semykin, Ihor Trunov, Dmytro Danylenko, Oleh Kukharyk.
Energy Circle: A brand for a common mission
The minutes before a race are a rush of last-minute onshore preparations, athletes getting in the boats and coaches giving final bits of advice. With this swirl of activity around them, Kukharyk, Danylenko, Trunov, Semykin and their coaches put their heads together and reach out their arms to form a circle.
This is how the name “Energy Circle” was born.
The idea came to Kukharyk after he watched footballers form a similar circle during one of the European tournaments. He thought this pre-competition gathering could also help to energise the K-4 crew and suggested for his teammates to try it.
“He thought this could give us a lot of energy,” Semykin told Olympics.com. “Indeed, we gathered in a circle for the first time before the start, felt this energy, felt each other's support. And since then, it has become a ritual in each of our competitions, the name of the brand and our business card.”
The Ukrainian K-4 are a unique phenomenon in that they are the only elite kayak team with its own brand and identity. They have their own logo, are active across various social media platforms, and have even released their own clothing line.
The initial motive for starting the brand was to increase publicity and try to attract sponsors. At that point, the K-4 had already won a world title and as they were still not getting much media attention, they decided to take matters into their own hands.
Their brand-focused efforts were a success. Multiple TV stations and newspapers in Ukraine featured their story. Not only their K-4 crew, but their sport also gained popularity.
“If we were just four athletes who row, we would probably only get questions like, ‘How did you like today's training?’ That's all. We wouldn't talk about anything else,” Danylenko said. “When we began creating the team brand and developing it, we began to use the potential of each team member.
“We became the Energy Circle that we are now. Not only boys who row, but also boys who know how to think and want to think.”
Dignity under the flare of rockets
The bond between the members of the Energy Circle proved crucial when Ukraine was invaded in February 2022. The K-4 team was training in Turkiye at the time, but even at a safe distance from the attacks, all their thoughts were with their homeland.
“The most difficult moment was when the war just started,” Semykin said. “You would wake up at six in the morning and start scrolling through the news and you would see what is happening at home because all our relatives were back home. We were so depressed. Then little by little, you force yourself, simply force yourself to go out to train, without understanding at all what it is all for.”
The situation continued to worsen over the next months. More villages were invaded and the shelling continued, including in places the athletes were personally connected to. An Iskander short-range ballistic missile hit a residential complex in Kharkiv 80 metres from where Danylenko lived, in what was one of several narrow escapes for the kayakers.
“There is nothing to bomb, but you are bombed, and you go to bed every night in Ukraine not knowing whether a rocket will reach you today or not,” Danylenko said. “You want to make plans for the future, but you are not completely sure what your future holds. You wouldn't wish this even on your enemy.”
Semykin felt all the fragility of making plans in a time of war when, getting ready to celebrate his wedding, four days before the big date he got a call that one of his friends has been killed.
“How do you act in such situations? You arrive and on the first day, you go to your friend's funeral, and then you go to your own wedding,” Semykin said. “It's impossible to celebrate when you have just returned from a funeral.”
Team support became a lifeline at this time as the four kayakers leaned on each other for support.
Unable to train on water in Ukraine in the earlier months of the war as this came with a high risk of attack, Danylenko admitted that their K-4 crew would likely have fallen apart if the four men were not united in their determination to move forward.
“Only the support of the four and the motivation of all four saved us,” Danylenko said. “It gave us strength. We said, ‘Boys! Let's make this our life's work, what we have been training for for 15 years, and let’s do the best we can in the sport we are masters in."
The members of Energy Circle have organised various fundraisers to help war victims.
The Energy Circle giving the energy back
With this sports goal in mind, Danylenko, Semykin, Kukharyk and Trunov also agreed that they had another, bigger mission to pursue as athletes.
In almost 900 days since the start of the war, the four kayakers have seen many of their fellow athletes and loved ones go to the front, including Kukharyk’s father. They are in constant contact with the soldiers to check if they need anything and if they do, the K-4 leverages their brand in the sports world to raise money for different causes.
Semykin’s friend, competitive rower Volodymyr Dzybytsky, was among those the Energy Circle was able to help. The athletes raised money for Dzybytsky’s prosthetic after he lost his leg above the knee as a volunteer in a storm brigade. Dzybytsky has since gotten back into the boat and is now aiming to qualify for the Paralympic Games.
Examples like this give Semykin hope.
“This is our way to thank people for defending our nation at the front. Someone sacrifices their health, someone, unfortunately, their life. And this is our thanks for the fact that their sacrifice allows us to continue to do our job as athletes,” Semykin said. “Vova (Volodymyr) gave his leg for this. We don't need anything. We just want to thank him.”
The Energy Circle have also visited de-occupied territories in Mykolaiv and organised multiple fundraisers to help civilian war victims. They are ambassadors of the Unbroken foundation, which provides prosthetics to children and adults injured in the war.
Hearing positive feedback from soldiers – both about their sports achievements and charity work – motivates the kayakers to continue these efforts.
“You are not judged for not fighting at the front. Instead, they say that it is cool that you do what you do. It's cool that you are raising our flag. It's cool that we have our ‘sports front’,” Danylenko said. “It gives us confidence that they also believe in us, that we are also needed for what we do.”
Paddling to the Olympic stage
The Energy Circle delivered more happy news to the front lines when, in August 2023, they became the first Ukrainian men's K-4 team to qualify for an Olympic Games.
The premise behind Energy Circle is that together the athletes are stronger than they are apart. That certainly proved true, given their upwards trajectory since forming a team.
The houses of each of the four kayakers were filled with medals and trophies before they came together as a K-4 crew. They had each achieved success individually, but the biggest goal – a ticket to the Olympic Games – kept eluding them.
In 2021, mere months after first paddling together, they became the first Ukrainian team to win the men’s K-4 500m world title. They have managed to make the podium at every world championship since and have also topped the world ranking.
“When we became a four, each of us began to open up and understand that if he shares his skills with the team, then the team will share theirs with him. One for all and all for one,” Danylenko said of the secret behind the team's success. “And so, our growth as a team began. One shared idea. Four implementers.”
The team’s last world championships medal, a bronze, earned them a ticket to the Olympic Games Paris 2024.
“I get goosebumps thinking about that moment,” Danylenko said. “We went to the pontoon where the boats are weighed. That’s it, we know that we are already in third place. I remember Ihor cried. His father rowed. His grandfather rowed. And here he realised the dream of his generation. As for me, it was boundless joy. I just raised my head to the sky and simply said, ‘Thank you that all this was not in vain’.”
Same as for Trunov, the Olympic quota was a family milestone for Semykin. His mother, Tetyana Semykina, is a bronze medallist from Athens 2004 in the women’s K-4 500m.
All four kayakers who make up the Energy Circle are making their Olympic debut at Paris 2024.
The Energy Circle is ready for their Olympic debut. More than two years of training with their country in a state of war and dealing with the mental strain of the conflict make the extra pressure of the Olympic Games a light burden by comparison, Danylenko said.
“When you go to the start line now and realise that ordinary athletes are against you while you and the team have experienced such moments in these two and a half years, you realise that mentally and psychologically you are stronger,” Danylenko said.
“We understand that we are the chosen ones who were able to achieve this milestone in this difficult time of war in our country and to show the whole world that we will not be broken. We continue to fight.”