In sport, there is always a factor of surprise, and it often happens that the favorites engaged in fighting each other lose sight of the next “dark horse”, which takes all the trophies. Roughly the same thing happened at the 2016 Olympics in Rio, when a little-known Kazakhstani swimmer Dmitry Balandin unexpectedly won gold for everyone at a distance of 200 meters breaststroke. It will be discussed further.
First steps in sports
The leader of the Kazakhstan swimming team Dmitry Balandin was born in Almaty in 1995. The guy’s family was extremely athletic: dad was engaged in volleyball, and my mother was engaged in speed skating. There are not very many natural reservoirs in the steppe Kazakhstan, so the parents decided to send their eight-year-old son to the pool so that he would at least learn how to stay on the water.
Before that, the boy had already visited the sports section, accompanying his elder brother there.
Dmitry Balandin began to engage in swimming in SDUSSHOR No. 4 under the leadership of Marina Gilmutdinova. Things went smoothly, good results appeared, so Dima's parents were advised to send their son to a special sports school, where he could concentrate on playing sports. Thus, in 2008, a novice swimmer got into a boarding school for young athletes, where he studied with Ivan Golokha until 2008.
Junior level
The first international victory in the biography of swimmer Dmitry Balandin appears at the age of 14 years. At the youth tournament in Yekaterinburg ( Alexander Popov Cup ), he managed to get ahead of all his peers and took the first prize. Since that time, the young man began to show his breaststroke at distances of 200 and 100 meters. Thus, the preferences of Dmitry Balandin in swimming were determined, which confirmed the future of the athlete.
The turning point in his fate was the transition to a group of professionals, when it became clear that it was in sports that he would find his vocation in life. The guy’s coach was Alexei Kazakov, who will subsequently be his personal mentor.
In 2011, Dmitry Igorevich Balandin participated in the Asian Swimming Championships, where he became one of the best in his age group, winning a silver award. However, if we talk about the global scale, the prospects of the Kazakh athlete seemed rather modest.
In 2013, he participated in the youth world championship, where he managed to take only fourth place. However, the swimmer did not lose heart and continued to work hard, combining training with studies at Kazakh University.
Breakthrough
At the end of 2013, the leader of the country's swimming team, Dmitry Balandin, slipped in the pool and injured his leg. This somewhat overshadowed his preparation for the next season, which he began only in February, but in 2014 it was truly a turning point in the career of a young athlete.
Then he finished performing at the junior level and began to perform at serious adult competitions.
The first major international tournament was the Asian Championship. Here he performed well for the debutant, winning two medals. Next was the Chinese Open in Hong Kong, which Dmitry Igorevich Balandin confidently won due to the lack of serious competitors.
So, when the coaches wondered about the medal prospects at the upcoming Asian Games, nobody seriously counted on the special feats on the part of Dmitry, expecting him to get a maximum of silver or bronze. As Balandin himself admitted, he planned the same thing.
However, the atmosphere of large competitions had a miraculous effect on the Kazakh swimmer, so he unexpectedly won three gold medals at once at distances of 50, 100 and 200 meters breaststroke.
Gifts and Medals
A triple victory at the Asian Games brought the native of Kazakhstan the title of MSMK, a monetary reward, and most importantly - a financial grant from the state to prepare for all major tournaments. From now on, Dmitry Balandin did not depend on the vagaries of fate and mood of officials, but could calmly concentrate on training. The athlete progressed every day, purposefully preparing for the Olympics in Rio.
In 2015, a student at Kazakh University went to defend the honor of his native university and country for the summer Universiade in Korea. Here he performed well, taking gold at a hundred meters and bronze at a distance of fifty meters breaststroke.
Dmitry Balandin in Rio
However, the main feats awaited the athlete in 2016. As before the 2014 Asian Games, no one demanded of the impossible from the Balandin at the Olympics, as everyone understood the power of Australian and American swimmers. Even getting into the finals would be a good achievement for the Kazakh athlete. However, again, the incredible atmosphere of the grand tournament awakened the hidden possibilities of the swimmer.
He performed well at a distance of 100 meters, falling into the top ten strongest. True, on his favorite two-hundred-meter draw he hardly made it to the finals. The world champion Marco Koch and the American Cordes were considered the favorites, but in the decisive race they only were stunned to see how an unknown swimmer from an unknown country and the eighth lane of outsiders confidently sailed first.
Kazakhstan is not spoiled by the abundance of Olympic champions, especially in such a sport as swimming, so Dmitry Balandin returned to his homeland as a real hero. A brand was issued in his honor, a swimming pool was built in his native university, which was named after him, the swimmer was awarded orders and medals, and most importantly, he was supported financially.
However, as the athlete admitted, all this post-Olympic bustle prevented him from timely starting preparations for the 2017 World Cup, at which he ended up unsuccessfully.