Swonkow was born in Russia, he was a member of the Soviet national junior squad, but moved to Ukraine as a teenager. He lived in Sumy and started biathlon in 1991. He made his international debut at the beginning of the 1993/94 season in a Ukrainian team that was in the necessary re-establishment phase after the dissolution of the Soviet Union . In Bad Gastein he missed the good placements by far as 134th of a sprint and 115th of an individual. A little later, he won his first World Cup point as the 25th of a sprint in Ruhpolding and was among the top ten for the first time as tenth of an individual in Antholz . The highlight of the first season was participation in the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer . As 14th he achieved a good placement in the individual, with Vitaliy Mohilenko , Toras Dolniy and Walentyn Dschyma he was only 15th, but as the last runner he was the only Ukrainian without penalty. At the European Championships in 1995 in Le Grand-Bornand , he won the bronze medal together with Ruslan Lyssenko , Dschyma and Popow behind the relay teams from Belarus and Germany. The last international championships were the 1995 World Championships in Antholz. Swonkow was in the relay race alongside Oleksandr and Ruslan Lyssenko and Toras Dolniy eleventh, in the individual he missed the bronze medal almost sensationally by half a second against Oleg Ryschenkow . With his good result he benefited from his faultless shooting result; Anyway, Swonkow was considered an excellent marksman who worked a lot on this sub-discipline. Otherwise, he always tried to use new training methods and to accelerate processes through repetitions and to create automatisms, which was still new in biathlon at the time. Nationally he was multiple Ukrainian champion and once third place in Soviet championships.
Swonkov, around whom the Ukrainian team of the future should be built, was killed in a car accident. Since 1996 a tournament with a commemorative race has been held in Sumy every year in August, one of the most important biathlon events in Ukraine.
Biathlon World Cup placements
The table shows all placements (depending on the year, including the Olympic Games and World Championships).
1st - 3rd Place: Number of podium placements
Top 10: Number of placements in the top ten (including podium)
Points ranks: Number of placements within the point ranks (including podium and top 10)
Starts: Number of races run in the respective discipline
Ukraine
