Ukraine's national Olympic team participating in the Vancouver Winter Olympics congratulated Viktor Yanukovych with his victory at the country's recent presidential elections, the National Olympic Committee reported on Sunday.
The second round of elections on February 7 gave Yanukovich 48.95% of the votes, while Ukrainian Prime Minister and presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko garnered 45.47%.
"In their letter with the best sincere congratulations on the victory at the presidential elections, the Ukrainian Olympic athletes expressed their confidence that Viktor Yanukovych will do much to develop sports in our state and will follow his main philosophy of bringing up a healthy nation," the committee's message said.
Tymoshenko, however, announced on Saturday that the election of Yanukovych as president was illegitimate.
"I want to announce clearly: Yanukovych is not our president, and no matter how things develop further, he will never become the legitimately elected president of Ukraine," Tymoshenko said on her personal website.
"There are possibly more than one million falsified votes, which would give us (Tymoshenko Bloc Party) the win."
Yanukovych received 12.5 million votes; whereas Tymoshenko received approximately 11.5 million.
Even before official presidential vote results have been announced in Ukraine, Yanukovych has received a flurry of congratulations from Western powers and organizations.
U.S. President Barack Obama called Yanukovych on Thursday to congratulate him on winning the presidential runoff. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and European Union President Herman Van Rompuy sent a message to Yanukovych on Friday.
The leaders of Germany and France hailed the election as democratic in their congratulations to Yanukovych.
KIEV, February 14 (RIA Novosti)
