The Belarussian young medallists from the Winter Youth Olympic Games Lausanne 2020 were honoured in the hall of the Olympic Glory at the NOC Belarus headquarters, in Minsk on 18 February 2020.

The Sports Ministry and President’s Sports Club awarded the athletes with money prizes and certificates to pay tribute to their outstanding sports achievements. The prizes were presented to Julia Kovalevskay, bronze medal in biathlon, and her coaches Igor Pesterev and Valeryi Lektorov; Ilya Korzun, gold medal in ice hockey 3×3, and his coaches Vladislav Melnichenok and Maksim Rohmanko.

NOC First Vice-President Viktor Lukashenko, Minister of sports and tourism Sergey Kovalchuk, Executive Director of the President’s Sports Club Andrei Karpovich also attended the ceremony. They stressed that the outstanding results of the young athletes wouldn’t possible without the support from their coaches and relatives and hoped that their successful experience will motivate others to aim higher.

“On the behalf of our national team, I want to thank the NOC Belarus, the Ministry of Sports and Tourism and the federations for the great opportunity they gave us to show our best at the Youth Olympic Games,” said Ilya Korzun. “We also want to show our gratitude to all the Belarussian fans who supported us from home”.

The Youth Winter Olympic Games 2020 were held from 9 to 22 January, in Lausanne, Switzerland. Belarus was represented in 5 different sports: biathlon (3 boys and 3 girls), alpine skiing (1 boy), speed skating (2 boys and 2 girls), skiing (2 boys and 2 girls), ice hockey – 3×3 tournament (4 boys).

The first winter Games for young athletes was held in 2012 in Innsbruck, Austria, and later in 2016 the Norwegian Lillehammer.