I sat for hours trying to think of how to start this week’s column.

What should I focus on as the world seems a completely different place from 10 days ago. 

I sat with my laptop open with two different windows open.  

The first was the story of Yevhen Malyshev - a talented biathlon athlete who had been killed in Ukraine.

He was only 20 years old. 

Then in the second window, was the International Paralympic Association saying they were letting Russian and Belarusian athletes compete in the Paralympic games in Beijing. 

This idea generated a flood of criticism - not just from athletes, but from people around the world - all targeted at the IPC.

Because events out in Ukraine are a clear breach of the Olympic Truce which is in effect from before the start of the Olympics until the closing ceremony of the Paralympics. 

The truce is there to promote peace and dialogue through the power of sport.  

I was disappointed by my Paralympic family as I watched athlete friends who I have competed with picking up guns to defend their country. 

As I sat looking at my screen, I remembered a moment standing in Sochi at the games in 2014 watching a medal ceremony, where two Russian athletes shared the medal podium with a Ukrainian athlete. They hugged and watched both flags raise together at the cross-country skiing venue.  

But all this feels like a long time ago.

Each day I message my friend who rowed for Ukraine it is hard to believe the images on her Instagram feed. 

She is not alone as lots of her fellow athletes took to defending their country.

From Olympic and World Champions to young athletes like Malyshev they stood together in what is an unimaginable situation.  

My thoughts were ‘how can the games go ahead like nothing is happening?’

Then news started to break that tensions in the athlete’s village were growing and many athletes were saying they would leave the games if the IPC didn’t change the decision and ban Russian and Belarusian athletes. 

The pressure on the IPC began to grow and as the world of sport started to ban these athletes the light started to shine on them even more.

I closed my laptop after reading about the IPC, and as I sat in the gym my phone pinged.

It was a message on my Instagram from Vladyslav Heraskevych.  

Heraskevych staged a silent anti-war protest at the Winter Olympics and is now back in Ukraine where he has become a voice to the world about what he sees daily. 

The 23-year-old student has become a war time reporter as he tries his best to do what he can to help his country. 

Daily he shared stories and tried to gather momentum around what sport could do in this situation.  

I didn’t know Heraskevych a few weeks ago, but now checking in on him is one of the first things I do each morning. 

However, the thought of the IPC still running the games with these athletes was troubling me even more after seeing young cancer patients holding signs up from underground bunkers. 

I thought of all the sporting bodes, surely the Paralympics would lead the way in this fight.  

Then Richard Whitehead - who has won multiple Paralympic medals for ParalympicsGB - declared that he would leave and refuse to competent no action was taken.

I didn’t want to message my friends there to ask what they would do, but I did think what I would do if it was me there and I had to compete directly against a Russian athlete.  

As I sit typing the last few paragraphs the news breaks that the IPC have gone back on their decision and the games will go ahead without the athletes from Russia and Belorussia.

Just before I close my screen with the sounds of Bob Marley echoing in the background singing about freedom, Heraskevych posts photos of before and after of his country. 

It is beyond belief and I sit thinking what more can the world of sport do to help? Surely there must be something.