The XI Winter European Youth Olympic Festival will launch on Sunday in the Romanian Brasov.

In the most prestigious youth tournament of the continent will participate about a thousand of young athletes aged 14 to 17 years from 45 European countries who will compete for awards in eight sports - alpine skiing, biathlon, cross country, ski jumping, snowboarding, figure skating (singles), ice hockey and short track.

Ukrainian team includes 33 Olympians who will compete in all sports of the program, excluding ice hockey. There are already titled athletes in our team: Silver medalists of the 1st Winter Youth Olympic Games 2012 in Innsbruck Yaroslav Paniot (figure skating) and Mariya Dolgopolova (short track) and also biathlonists Merkushyna Anastasia and Anton Myhda who in January became bronze medalists at junior World Cup in individual races.

A complete list of the Ukrainian team can be found at the official website of the NOC of Ukraine -

http://noc-ukr.org/en/about/officialdocuments/young-team-of-ukraine/.

EYOF is the most prestigious European competition held under the auspices of the European Olympic Committees every two years in a non-Olympic year - winter and summer editions in the same year.

A farewell celebration for the junior team leaving to the competitions will be held tomorrow in Ivano-Frankivsk. And on Saturday Chernivtsi will seize the baton to the Carpathians, where sports fans will also be able to wish a happy journey and successful starts to the young athletes.

Follow exclusive and prompt news about the performance of Ukrainian Olympians on the official website of the NOC and social networks.