“I play football with a piece of my leg missing”. A report about women with amputations

“Mom, I'm in the hospital, a piece of my leg is missing, but in general, I'm fine”

Among the 12 girls with amputations is 32-year-old veteran Olia Benda. She is the team captain and the only one who lost a leg in the war. The rest of them lost theirs mostly due to illness.

A blond woman approaches a swinging bench on the grounds of the Maximum camp, where the team members are currently living. She is dressed in black, with only a white inscription on the neck of her sweatshirt: “Make love”. He sits down next to me, and we sway slightly.

At first, I am afraid of hitting her prosthesis, but I involuntarily forget to control myself. And all because Olia has accepted the iron leg as her own. She shows herself to the world not through it, but through her features: activeness, liveliness, sincerity.

In 2014, she gave birth to her son Dmytro and two years later went to war.

“I thought that if I contributed just a little bit, everything would be over sooner. My husband and I were already not getting along. And when he warned me: ‘If they come for me from the military registration and enlistment office, you don't know where I am,’ I left him.”

She left her son with her mother.

“I come from a large family, seven of us. My sister was two years old, and my Dmytryk was one and a half. My mom said: ‘One more, one less’.”

Olia served in the 72nd Brigade named after the Black Cossacks as a cook: in 2016, there were not many options for girls in the army.

“We were stationed in Avdiivka. We got used to the shelling, we didn't run to hide anymore, and everyone was doing their own thing. And six months later I was wounded. It happened at dawn. I was woken up by a slap on the head. I thought it was the guys hitting me with a pillow because I had overslept.

It turned out that I fell on the floor when the shell hit, my eyes covered with clay. The bed was across the room, with a hole instead of a window. It was big enough to go outside. Water was leaking from the radiator.

I heard a second explosion and automatically fell to the ground, covering my face with my hands. I see in slow motion how the shell buries itself in the floor and explodes about 20 centimeters from my leg. The blast wave made my left leg go up, and everything between my foot and knee was blown out,” Olia says once again.

When she regained consciousness, she screamed. A fellow soldier came running: “Are you alive?” — “Yes, I am. My leg hurts”. He carried her to the cellar and pulled the tourniquet.

“I was wearing pants and did not realize what was wrong with me. I could see that my foot was there, my knee was there, and the pain was probably due to the shrapnel in my leg.”

The doctors did not believe that after two shell hits, she had no injuries, except for her injured leg.

“It was a miracle I survived. I know that when it falls 5-6 meters away from the guys, they become like a sieve from the debris, but here it was right next to me,” Olia recalls.

No one dared to tell her that her foot was hanging on by skin and veins and that a piece of her leg was missing altogether. The woman could feel the limb, it hurt, and it burned hot.

In the hospital after the operation, Olia asked the nurse to fix her injured limb. She remembers that the nurse demonstratively lifted the blanket: “Which one do you want to fix? You don't have one”.

“And then I saw it. The bandaged swollen thigh and there was nothing below.”

Olia cried. She cried for a long time with despair and pain.

“What does it mean to have no leg? I was 25 years old, and I hadn't seen a single person with a prosthesis back then. Only in wheelchairs. I could not imagine how to live on, how to be a burden to my family.”

Meanwhile, Olia's second husband, also a serviceman, was in a hurry to see her. Oleksii had read and prepared himself and reassured her from the doorstep: “They will put in a prosthesis, everything will be fine, you will walk a little slowly.”

She was glad that he was here, that he wouldn't leave her, and finally called her mom: “Mom, I'm in the hospital, a piece of my leg is missing, but in general, I'm fine.”

Now Olia is laughing: “I did get a prosthesis, but I didn't walk any slower. I realized that the faster I walk, the less people can see that I have something there. Most people do not notice my artificial leg at all.”

Football and retirement

After her injury, she went back to work: her diploma in office management was finally useful. She rehabilitated through sports. This is the best way because a person with amputations gets motivated and wants to achieve results.

That's how running came into her life. She started with a few tens of meters and made it to the 10 km US Marine Corps Marathon. Olia became the only woman out of 42,000 participants to run it with a prosthesis.

Three years ago, she gave birth to her second son. While on maternity leave, she was thinking about what kind of sport to do to improve her fitness. Suddenly, in September 2023, she was inundated with messages from her friends: “Olia, they want to form a women's football team for people with amputations. You have to be there!”.

“It turned out to be exactly what I needed: to get back into sports, into something new and interesting that I had never tried before. Last September, I trained for a week at the Maximum camp in Zolotonosha.

And then we were invited to Poland for joint training with a local team, which also includes women with amputations. They have been playing for a year and a half. I saw how strong, powerful, and cool it could be, and I realized that I wanted to do it. It's an unusual game, but it's a niche for me!”

So Olia started attending weekly training sessions with the men's amputee football team in Kyiv. Her friend Tania from Vinnytsia comes to visit her, spends the night, and trains with her as well. Not long ago, both girls were invited to work for the Ukrainian Football Association. Olia became a social project development manager.

“In six months, I have regained my shape, my arms have become strong, and I feel comfortable using crutches. I escaped from everyday life. It's so exciting when you score a goal — the emotions are beyond words.

You're happy, the team is happy, and the coach is screaming with pleasure. By the way, he told me that I have a fine sense of goal. That is, I know when and where to run, where to hit, and how to score a beautiful goal.”

You can tell from her intonation that this praise pleases her.

“After I was injured, I told myself that I would learn to do as much as possible with the prosthesis as I did with my own two legs. Now I use every moment, I'm not afraid to try anything, I'm not afraid. For example, I came here from Kyiv by car alone.

My life has become much brighter with the prosthesis. And I really appreciate every moment. I tell the girls here: ‘Let's get a women's team together before I retire’.” She laughs. The team captain has been on disability retirement for several years.

“I started running after the ball at the age of 47”

The camp has a tight schedule of training, activities, and recreation. So I pull a round-faced brunette with a bob out of the drawing class to talk to her. Nataliia Skliarova, 48, is from Mariupol.

Two years ago, the woman was fleeing from shelling and ended up with her husband in a dormitory in Lviv. A year ago, she had her leg amputated: her health problems worsened during the war, and her femoral artery was severed.

After that, she spent days languishing in the dormitory until she heard about the Maximum camp. In September 2023, women with amputations were gathered here for the first time to participate in a sports program. The goal was for each participant to discover their uniqueness through team and extreme sports, regain strength for new achievements in life, and share their story of inspiration.

“I never did sports. I only went in for it when I was a kid, but I decided to take it up. It's very hard on crutches, but it's also joyful!” Nataliia's voice, the voice of an offended woman who had just complained about her fate, changes. “I started running after a ball when I was 47! It's so motivating! I realized I could do it, and even went to Poland for a training camp.”

I ask her what she likes most about it.

“The staff. They are so loving. They put on and take off our shoes, and ask us how we are doing a hundred times. They are attentive, caring, and pampering: massages, horseback riding, spa treatments, and various extreme activities. I want to come back here.”

Throughout the day, I saw volunteers wearing red T-shirts with the words “Staff” on them, trying to anticipate what the women needed: to bring a tray of food, to give them a crutch, to ask if they wanted water, etc.

Nataliia doesn't train in Lviv — she doesn't feel comfortable being on the men's team. It's hard to travel to Kyiv, and it's an additional expense.

She is not the only one who says this. Women from different parts of Ukraine have gathered here, but only a few have the opportunity to train regularly.

From the camp, the women get ready to go to the school stadium for their daily training, which has a comfortable artificial turf. I stand there while they all pass by. Some of them move in such a way that you wouldn't even guess they are wearing a prosthesis. Some have a harder time because they have no knee, and that's why pain is imprinted on their faces.

Some people put an overlay on the prosthesis, so the iron leg becomes three-dimensional and you can wear knee highs on it, just like on a healthy leg. Natalia decorated her prosthesis with a stocking that imitates a tattoo on the skin.

All of them have a quote from the Bible on their T-shirts: “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.”

“Stronger in spirit than many around them”

While we're on the bus to training, Petro Kyrpychov, the marketing manager of the NGO Maximum, tells us that their camp is supported by American organizations. At Maximum, they are involved in social projects, particularly for people with disabilities and veterans.

The formation of the Ukrainian national football team for women with amputations is one such project. By the way, there is such a men's team, which has been training for a year and will take part in the European Championship in a month. All its players are veterans who lost their limbs in the war.

For the women's team, they were looking for participants all over the country. So far, not many have come forward, so the search continues: they want to recruit at least 20 participants.

“This is an exclusive direction. This is not about professional football, in which people fight hard to win. It is more about the characters of women who have lost their legs and do not give up, but live actively and fully.

We have a match after training. If some of the older women come out for a few minutes, it's already an event, a victory. In the camp, they underwent training to maintain their resilience and fortitude.

They learned to act as a team, to overcome challenges together. Some may not have thought about playing football at first, but they were inspired by the others. They had six days of unique experience because only Maximum is engaged in women's football on crutches,” says Petro Kyrpychov.

Dmytro Rzhonkovskyi, the coach of the national team for men with amputations, agreed to train the women as well.

“I am delighted with these girls. They are really stronger in spirit than many people around them, they give their best. They are an example for those who will come after. This is something incredible that cannot be explained in words. On the field, they have become more confident these days, they have felt each other,” he comments, having already conducted several training sessions with them.

Dmytro explains that since there are not many women, they will form the team from those who are there. Participation in the World Cup should be seen as an opportunity to make a name for oneself. To prepare the women better, they will hold several more camps.

“In general, training healthy people and people with disabilities is no different. Any experienced trainer with a license could do it. All you need is good will and funding,” he concludes.

Dmytro hopes that there will be more such coaches and teams, as many veterans return from the front, and there is no better rehabilitation than through sports.

“Did you see that goal?”

Veterans from the Cherkasy soccer team came to support the girls at the training. The men laugh that they will be running after the girls. Gilbert McKenzie, an American who was with the women this week, and Dmytro Rzhonkovskyi are conducting joint training sessions.

At first, everyone warms up sitting, lying down, stretching, twisting, standing in a plank, shoulder stand, plow, etc. Standing up, they execute commands: running with acceleration, jumping backward, and sideways.

— Everything is crunching!

— I'm in pain! — the girls echo.

After the command to bring the knee up, I froze: on crutches, one leg missing, and the other going up — the players are lifted at least a meter above the ground. It looks amazing.

— “Can you feel your arm?” the coach calls out in English. — You can’t? That's too bad.

Everyone laughs because only the arms hold the weight of the body.

However, Mackenzie praises girls more often: “Super, super!” she says in Ukrainian.

Students practicing on other sports fields are increasingly looking at the football field and coming closer. Everything around is full of noise, laughter, and energy. Even an unfastened prosthesis in a sneaker on the grass does not look like a symbol of grief. Everything around is full of life.

After the warm-up, the players work with the balls: everyone has to score a goal.

— Give in to the boys so they don't cry, — the coach says with a smile.

— It's better if they give in to us at the gate so that we don't cry, — they joke.

After each goal is scored, Mackenzie’s emotional interpreter runs to hug the one who succeeded this time.

At the gate is 30-year-old Sasha Zolotukhina. A woman with a short haircut and wild energy. Part of her right arm has been missing since her birth. Quick to react, she stops balls with her healthy hand, foot, or knee in such a precisely and effortless way that it seems like it's very easy.

During the break, everyone does push-ups. Sasha even flies up, her body is so elastic. We have a few minutes to talk. She begins to tell her story and suddenly exclaims emotionally:

— Oh, how beautiful! Did you see the goal?

“What do you mean, you're not standing at the gate?”

A girl is from the Dnipropetrovsk region. Since childhood, she has been fond of street football and later participated in various competitions in the women's team. She played on the Paralympic volleyball team. After the Russian invasion, she moved to the Netherlands.

“I live there, learn the language, and work there: I was hired to clean a restaurant and now I'm cooking. At the same time, I used to play soccer with ordinary girls, but not very often. And then I was invited here, and I thought: I'll try it, it's new for me.

When I arrived, the girls here were surprised that I had never been a goalkeeper. ‘Such abilities,’ ‘What do you mean, you don't stand on the gate?’, ‘We thought you had experience’,” the girl laughs.

After a week at Maximum, Sasha decided that she wanted to join the national team and would go to training camps in Ukraine. She will train in the Netherlands.

“This is 100% mine. The girls and I are passionate about this amputee football. We made friends here, we became a team. Olia Benda inspires with strength, I inspire with positivity. Everyone adds something. Someone adds a smile, someone adds support. I told the team: what is the most important thing in a car? The engine! But it won't go without wheels!”

Olia encourages newcomers to join the team: “Don't be afraid to try new things, we accept everyone, we teach everyone!”

“Who gets the sausage?”

After lunch and rest, there is a match that ends the women's stay in the camp.

Unexpectedly, before the game, one of the girls refuses to go on the field: “I'm not interested in football, I came here to socialize, my crutches are already hurting my palms.”

The woman is replaced by another. The interpreter takes off her shoes and gives her her sneaker, which is more suitable for the game than her shoes.

The women's team's rivals are the camp staff and volunteers. The man in goal hides his healthy arm under his T-shirt. The rest of the players bend their healthy leg and jump on crutches to create a fair competition. Those who sometimes accidentally use their bent leg are laughed at: “Oh my God, my leg has grown back!”.

I had never watched a soccer match before, but this game made me feel emotional, stand up, applaud, shout some lines, and rejoice madly. For every goal, for every participant who was flying on crutches.

When one of the players falls and injures her leg, the game stops. Everyone rushes to her aid. At the request, they bring something cold from the freezer from the school. This “something” turns out to be a frozen ring of homemade sausage.

After the injury, the girl got up and continued playing, and the rest of the match was filled with jokes from the stands about who would get the sausage, where to buy it, and how to cook it.

The women win with a score of 4:1.

The stadium is full of happiness.