Oleksiy Tsybko

Oleksiy Oleksandrovich Tsybko (19 March 1967 – 31 March 2022) was a Ukrainian rugby union international for the Ukraine national rugby union team from 1991 to 2003 who was killed during the retaking of Bucha from Russian forces.

Biography Tsybko was born in Smila, Ukraine to a single mother. He would later take on the surname of his adoptive father, Oleksandr Cybko. As a youth, Tsybko was involved in athletics as a javelin and discus thrower, setting a distance record for discus at age 13. At age 20, he learned about rugby after watching a game in Kiev. He soon joined RC Aviator and RC Argo as a player. While playing for Aviator, the team was an 8-time Ukrainian national champions. Tsybko would go on to make forty appearances for the Ukraine national rugby union team from 1991 until 2003, some as captain. In 2001, he married his wife Alla. From 2003 to 2005 he was President of the Rugby Federation of Ukraine. There, he worked to develop the sport in the country. In 2007, he founded a rugby club in his hometown of Smila, where 600 children would go on to learn how to play rugby, with some competing as part of the national rugby team. In 2014 he joined the Ukraine military forces to defend the Crimea from Russian forces. Viewing rugby as a philosophy of life, his military callsign was "Rugbyst". On 29 October 2015,…Citește mai mult

2022, Oleksiy Tsybko Memorial Museum 2022, honoured with the Polish sports shield, "Gloria Heroibus"

Battle of Bucha List of Ukrainian sports figures killed during the Russo-Ukrainian war