The Olympic Games in Rio are notorious for doping scandals and the inadmissibility of many Russian athletes. The Russian swimmer Yulia Efimova was first disqualified, then acquitted, but, stepping on the lane of the swimming pool, experienced harsh psychological pressure from her rivals and the stands. In a similar situation was the young hope of the swimming team Daria Ustinova, for which Rio also became a battlefield for the right to go to the start. However, at seventeen, she coped well with difficult circumstances and showed a decent result, taking fourth place.
Start
The future sports star was born in the small town of Kamensk-Uralsky, in the Sverdlovsk region. Swimming in the biography of Daria Ustinova appeared largely due to unforeseen circumstances. As a child, she suffered from back pain, and doctors advised her parents to give her daughter a swim to improve her health. Fortunately, the physical data of Dasha, who was the highest in the class, made it possible to count on good results. The progress of the girl was obvious, and soon she became the strongest in her age category.
The first major tournament for her was the European Youth Festival, held in Turkey in 2011. Despite the fact that she competed with rivals several years older than her, Daria Ustinova, for whom swimming became a vocation, left sunny Turkey with a set of three awards. Even then, her preferred disciplines took shape, she swam especially well on her back, where she gave the best results.
Breakthrough to the Elite
The idol of the young swimmer was the famous Anastasia Zueva. And at the age of fourteen, a member of the Sverdlovsk region swimming team Daria Ustinova got the opportunity to meet with a reputable athlete on neighboring tracks. The competition of representatives of two generations took place as part of the Russian championships in 2012, where the more experienced Zueva won. However, Daria worked like a crazy woman in training, easily breaking all youth records and promised to grow into a serious champion.
In the same year, in July, the fifth World Sports Games "Children of Asia" took place. Already a serious athlete Daria Ustinova, swimming for which became a real profession, with a huge margin ahead of all her rivals. From these competitions she left with a whole set of gold awards.
Wins were won at distances of 100 and 200 m on the back, as well as in 4x100 freestyle relay races and 4x100 relay races in the combined relay.
Adult wins
At the age of fifteen, Daria Ustinova, swimming in Russia without which it was already difficult to imagine, began to win in adult tournaments. She became the champion of the country at a distance of 200 m on her back. As part of the team of the Sverdlovsk region, the girl also became the country's vice champion in the integrated relay.
Having won several important victories in the Cup of Russia, Daria Ustinova won a ticket to the World Cup in Barcelona. Due to the injury of Anastasia Zueva, which was an example for her to follow, the team mentors put Dasha to participate in the combined relay. The debut was deafening: the fifteen-year-old girl managed to become the vice-world champion in her team.
A year later, she won the individual award, winning the European Championships in Berlin at her favorite distance of 200 meters on her back.
At the same time, the hope of domestic sports was faced with a rather indifferent attitude to themselves in their hometown. In Kamensk-Uralsky, where she lived, Daria Ustinova did not even have access to the pool and was forced to purchase subscriptions on a common basis, training with ordinary swimming enthusiasts. Opportunities for serious training appeared only at training camps in Yekaterinburg, Moscow or abroad.
Difficult swimming of Daria Ustinova at the Olympics
One of the most striking events of the Games in Rio was the story of the disqualification of swimmer Julia Efimova and her subsequent rehabilitation. The same fate befell Daria Ustinova, however, she remained in the shadow of a more famous friend on the team. Already at the training camp in Rio, Daria found out that she was not allowed to participate in the competition because of the suspicion of doping.
Parents of a minor girl filed a lawsuit in an arbitration court and achieved justice.
However, this story was not in vain. Ustinova was morally exhausted by all this hassle, and besides, she had practically no time to prepare. Nevertheless, she performed with dignity and on her crown two hundred meters on the back she became fourth, stopping a step away from the medal. Moreover, the result of the bronze medalist was a whole second worse than Daria’s personal record.
In any case, Ustinova coped with the circumstances and showed herself well at her first Olympics.