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Olympics: Rally in Paris to honour Ukrainian athlete deaths

A rally will be held in Paris on Saturday to honour Ukrainian athletes killed by Russian forces during the war in Ukraine.

A total of 450 people plan to march from the Panthéon to the Fontaine Saint-Michel wearing T-shirts bearing the names of Ukrainian athletes killed in the war.

Among the athletes to be honoured includes weightlifter Oleksandr Pielieshenko, who competed at Rio 2016, and 2018 Youth Olympics silver medalist boxer Maksym Halinichev.

The rally is being organised by the Union of Ukrainians in France with the support of the Ukrainian World Congress.

Paris will take centre stage later this month when it hosts the Olympic Games between July 26 and Aug. 11.

Ukraine will send 147 athletes to the Olympics. Gracenote, who use data to predict the medal table at every Games, expect Ukraine to win 17 medals, including two golds.

A source told ESPN it is unclear whether Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will attend the opening ceremony on July 26.

Only 16 Russian athletes are set to take part in the Games, although the use of their country's flag and national colours are banned.

Russian athletes will compete under a green flag with the letters "AIN," and they will not participate in the opening ceremony on the River Seine and will not be included in the medals table.

Russia and Belarus are banned from entering team sports, and several Russian sports federations refused to enter individual athletes as long as restrictions were in place.