Participant in the regional “Young Person of the Year – 2026” competition “Leaders of Knowledge” category: Yelyzaveta Morenko
Yelyzaveta Morenko is a 23-year-old representative of the Bakhmut community, an international-class Master of Sports of Ukraine in sumo, and a member of Ukraine’s national team. She was born in 2002 in Bakhmut. She combines her career as an active athlete with her work as a coach and instructor at Bakhmut Children’s and Youth Sports School No. 1 and as an athlete-instructor at the Ministry of Youth and Sports of Ukraine.
Yelyzaveta has achieved her greatest successes in sumo, where she became world champion (2023, 2024), runner-up at the World Combat Games (2023), and a two-time bronze medalist at world championships. She regularly wins European Cups and continental championships. In 2025, she won three gold medals at the European Championships (in the weight class, open weight, and team categories), and in June 2026, she won an individual gold medal at the European Championships in Scotland.
In addition to sumo, Yelyzaveta has achieved success in other combat sports: she is the Ukrainian sambo champion, the European beach wrestling champion (2020), and a three-time Ukrainian champion in Alish belt wrestling (2021, 2025, 2026), as well as a medalist at an international tournament in Kyrgyzstan.
At the same time, she serves as a national-level referee. As a coach, she trains future medalists for Ukrainian championships, and as part of her community work, she conducts open training sessions and master classes for children displaced from the Donetsk region.