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By Aleks Klosok, Amanda Davies, CNN

Milan (CNN) — Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych tells CNN he will defy the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and wear his helmet featuring images of athletes killed during the war in Ukraine.

The IOC earlier expressed understanding for Heraskevych’s situation but said that the helmet “contravenes” the governing body’s guidelines on political statements, offering to allow him to wear a black armband in commemoration instead.

In response, Heraskevych said at a press conference that he would wear the helmet regardless of the guidelines.

“Yes,” the slider said in reply to a question asking if he would defy the IOC’s decision. “If the IOC betrays these athletes, I will not betray them.”

“I wear this helmet two days ago, yesterday, today. I will wear it tomorrow and I will wear it for the race day,” Heraskevych told CNN’s Amanda Davies.

“These people sacrificed their lives and because of that, I am able to be here today. I’m able to be at the Olympics, and I will not betray them.”

CNN Sports has reached out to the IOC for comment.

The helmet in question was worn by the 27-year-old during a Winter Olympics skeleton training session in Cortina d’Ampezzo on Monday.

The athletes featured on the helmet are: weightlifter Alina Perehudova, boxer Pavlo Ischenko, ice hockey player Oleksiy Loginov, actor and athlete Ivan Kononenko, diver and coach Mykyta Kozubenko, shooter Oleksiy Habarov and dancer Daria Kurdel.

“Some things are more important than sports,” he told CNN. “To pay tribute to them, to people who sacrificed their lives because of this sacrifice, I’m able today to be here, and for me it’s important to pay tribute to them and pay honor to their families.”

In a video posted on social media following his training session, Heraskevych — who carried his country’s flag at the opening ceremony — said Toshio Tsurunaga, the IOC representative in charge of communications between athletes, national Olympic committees and the IOC, had gone to the Athletes’ Village to inform him of the decision.

“A decision that simply breaks my heart. The feeling that the IOC is betraying those athletes who were part of the Olympic movement, not allowing them to be honored on the sports arena where these athletes will never be able to step again,” he said in the video.

“Despite precedents in modern times and in the past when the IOC allowed such tributes, this time they decided to set special rules just for Ukraine.”

CNN Sports has contacted Tsurunaga for comment.

“I became more disappointed after the latest news when US figure skater (Maxim Naumov) showed a photo of his parents w

By Meg Tirrell, CNN

(CNN) — The US Food and Drug Administration has refused to accept an application from Moderna to review its first mRNA seasonal flu vaccine, the company said Tuesday, in another setback for the technology that’s been a target of some Trump administration health officials.

The agency told Moderna that its application didn’t contain an “adequate and well-controlled” trial because the control arm didn’t reflect the “best-available standard of care in the United States at the time of the study,” according to a letter dated February 3 that Moderna posted online.

The company said that the refusal was inconsistent with previous feedback from the agency and that it had requested a meeting with FDA officials to understand how to proceed.

“The complete stunner here is at no point in any of this did anybody say that it was not adequate” to run its clinical trial the way it had discussed with the agency, Moderna’s president, Dr. Stephen Hoge, told CNN on Tuesday.

CNN has asked the FDA for comment.

The company used a standard-dose seasonal flu vaccine called Fluarix as a comparator in a 40,700-person clinical trial to demonstrate the experimental mRNA vaccine’s safety and efficacy. Moderna said the FDA had agreed with that plan in April 2024 but suggested the company also include data comparing its vaccine with an approved high-dose flu vaccine for people over 65, which the company said it did.

Moderna added that as recently as August, in a meeting before it submitted its application for approval of the vaccine, the FDA suggested that it would review the filing and assess issues with the comparator during that process.

But last week, the agency refused to do the review at all, according to the letter. It was signed by Dr. Vinay Prasad, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, which oversees vaccine regulation.

Prasad was an outspoken critic of the government’s response to Covid-19 before he was appointed to the FDA under US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He claimed late last year without providing details that Covid-19 vaccines resulted in deaths of 10 children and has said the agency will change its vaccine approval process.

The administration also has withdrawn support for mRNA technology in infectious diseases; HHS canceled 22 projects worth about $500 million focused on mRNA vaccine development in August, claiming against evidence that “these vaccines fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like COVID and flu.”

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