Team

When not training I fanatically enjoy watching basketball, acai bowls, and free coffee-shop wifi. Outside of leisure, I work at a Medical Startup that opportunely occupies and keeps my mind off athletics. With Eastern European roots, my family hailing from Ukraine, I grew up a kid of first-generation immigrants in a culturally hardworking environment.

With kayaking, I found my muse outdoors. At the age of 16, two years into an organic training volume increase, I qualified for the U.S.A. Sprint Development Team. That following summer I flew out to Poland for the Olympic Hopes Regatta. Captivated by the opportunity I competed in my first World Championship shortly after junior year in High School. I look back nostalgically, now in my late 20’s, to see multiple National titles and World Championship events (Sprint & Marathon), single’s and team-boat training, and a dauntingly rewarding metaphorical rollercoaster of American amateur athletics.

In the late summer of 2018, I moved from my Northeastern hometown outside Philadelphia to sunny Southern California, to pursue my Olympic vision with San Diego Canoe Kayak Team. A gap year with the emergence of the pandemic was bridged with training at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games venue. In the mountains of North Georgia (Lake Lanier Canoe Kayak) I had trained with a few of the strongest American Sprint Kayak athletes in the country. Bolstered by talent, stubborn work ethic, and the support of mentors and family, I provisionally qualified for the Tokyo Olympic Games at the 2021 U.S.A. Olympic Team Trials.