The European Championship in freestyle, Greco-Roman and women's wrestling was held on April 1-6 in Vantaa (Finland). During this Championship 24 sets of medals were won. The Ukrainian representative was Vasyl Shuptar, a young USPU Physical Training Department student in the weight category up to 61 kg. It was his first time in the main team. He had presented the youth team before.

On the second day of the competition Vasyl Shuptar, the free style wrestler won a bronze medal in the lucky finals. He defeated Oleksandr Semisorov from Germany (12:05). On the way to success Shuptar defeated Ronnie Martin from Finland with the score of 1/ 8 finals, defeated Tapyo Ranna (score 8:2), and Munir Resep Aktas from Turkey in the 1 /4 finals (0:0), and in the semi-finals he lost to Azerbaijani Haji Aliyev with the score of 7:9.

After the Championship Vasyl returned home to his young wife Diana and three year old daughter Olga. Diana Shuptar is also a student of Physical Training Department at USPU. She is the Master of sports of Ukraine in freestyle wrestling. Vasyl and Diana work on this kind of sports in the city of Smila Cherkasy Oblast where they live.

The very next day after returning home Vasyl Shuptar came to the University where he was encouraged and supported. He had a meeting with Natalia Pobirchenko, the University Rector, and Galyna Bezverkhnia, the Dean of the Physical Training Department. The successful student is grateful to both of them and his coaches for the understanding, support and assistance. He says that being a student of USPU he is truly impressed with this humane attitude, which, unfortunately, is hard to find in other educational institutions.

Natalia Semenivna sincerely congratulated Vasyl on his victory, asked him about the training for the championship and the confrontation among the athletes, his health and mood. We know that Vasyl Shuptar had a knee injury in the international tournament in Minsk two weeks before the European Championship. It made him believe that he couldn’t participate in the championship. But the coaches were convinced that the young athlete (22 years old) would win a medal in these competitions, they believed in his victory and he was famous for being a workaholic.

- The coaches have given me a chance and I am very glad for that, - said the athlete. - I felt that I could get a medal despite the injury. And I did it. Although there was a disappointment. The rules of the competition were changed two days before the Championship and our federation was not warned about it. I knew all my rivals quite well, fought with some of those several times and watched the others fight. I could easily say all the athletes were equal in the competition.

- In my battle with the Azerbaijan guy he eventually got the gold due to the three unfair additional points he received. And I was wrongly fined by the judges (I got 2 points less) because I supposedly failed to “capture” the opponent. The coach of our national team filed a protest because I was not even informed about it. But our protest was ruled out. In the end, I lost to the Azerbaijan guy with the score of 9:7. But it's not bad for the first time so I am not very upset. I believe that everything will be great eventually. I will train more to be a cut above the others. Then it will be no problem.

Currently, the wrestler is preparing for the May Cup of Ukraine where he must prove that he is ready to defend the honor of our country in the World Cup. He has a dream just like all the athletes –to win the Olympic gold.

Vasyl Shuptar is a very talented wrestler and we believe his great future. We wish him luck!