Olga Belyakova, an athlete from the city of Rybinsk, has long been no stranger to the international arena. She was born in an ordinary completely non-sports family, but was able to achieve the title of three-time champion of Russia. Among the number of awards she deserves, it is especially worth highlighting the complete set received at the 2014 Olympics - bronze, silver, gold. The bronze was brought to her by a distance of three thousand meters, on the first day of the competition Olga immediately took gold at a distance of one and a half thousand, and after the race of a thousand meters, the athlete was awarded silver.
Biography
Belyakova Olga Vladimirovna was born on September 26, 1988. Already at 10 years old she first went on the ice in Rybinsk. In the fifth grade, coach Starostina Marina came to school number 5, where she studied. Everyone was invited to sign up for a short track lesson. Many became interested, but subsequently most of them dropped out, as a result, only Olga and her sister were left to deal with, but she soon left.
Olga Belyakova continued to train hard and already in 2007 she was included in the Russian team.
What is a short track
In this interesting sport, the strongest and most enduring do not always win, often the championship is given to the one who is more resourceful. You need to be able to correctly distribute forces, take the right position, make overtaking in the right place, often everything is decided only in a split second.
And of course, as in any sport, luck is important here, when there is an unexpected collision with an opponent’s ridge, the speed is lost, and with it the chances of victory.
Often, a short track is associated with car racing, the same turns, overtaking, descent from the distance, although the speed is lower - about 60 km / h - but this is quite enough to get serious injuries.
Therefore, in competitions and serious training, an additional layer of mats is screwed to the sides or these boards are removed at all.
The beginning of the sports path
Olga Belyakova did not immediately join the team and began to win places in international competitions. At first it was just a hobby. Children rode around, played catch-up, learned to deftly maneuver. Later, competitions began, but here, the girl was often ahead of her comrades.
One of Olga’s big pluses is her positive: she never despaired, perceived losses calmly and stubbornly went to her intended goal. There were a lot of trainings, they were interspersed with trips to sports camps, a strict regime, a lot of sports, sleep, lunch and sports again. “It’s very difficult and still happens, I want to leave the training session,” Olga Belyakova talks about her life.
Photos of the girl clearly show her high level of training. Back in 2010 in Vancouver, she was not so confident. But after the end of the Olympiad, close communication with her competitors and idol Catherine Reuter, experience came, and with it a serious attitude to fight.
Forward to a new goal
“Sport will always remain a sport: it’s both victories and losses, but now I have a great incentive not to give up and move on,” says Olga Belyakova. Today, she is one of the outstanding representatives of the short track national team, but, according to her, she is also thinking about skating. Both of these sports are supported by one organization and the president of the union, Alexei Kravtsov, agrees with this position of the athlete.