Asadauskaitė: I can speak Russian and some Polish

‘While living in Vilnius, it’s impossible not to know Russian and Polish’, said Lithuanian Olympic champion in modern pentathlon, Laura Asadauskaitė, during today’s videoconference with DELFI’s readers.

The Olympic gold medalists emphasized that even though this year’s start at the Olympics was one of the easiest, she put a lot of effort to prepare for it.

Laura Asadauskaitė became famous recently for her sharp statements about underfunding of sports and sports facilities in Lithuania and for her criticism of the sports policy aimed exclusively at promoting basketball. ‘When you achieve good results, you feel that you have the right to say openly what the reality looks like. It’s been 12 years from the Olympics in Sydney and we’ve acquired 16 medals during this time, and nothing has changed, not a one sports arena has been renovated, except the one for basketball. That’s why we try to bring officials’ attention to this problem’, said Asadauskaitė.

However, Asadauskaitė intends to train in such conditions as they are and achieve further successes: ‘I’ve never been a world champion, I’m always the second or the third, so there are still some unrealized dreams. I’ve never even thought about representing another country, there was no such idea, my entire family lives here and even for this reason it would be difficult’.

Laura Asadauskaitė admitted that she stopped training for six months after giving birth to her daughter, and return to professional sports was very difficult. ‘Other professional modern pentathletes return to sports much earlier, but they often have health problems because of that. I decided not to take a risk; moreover, a child needs its mum, at least for the first six months’.

Laura Asadauskaitė, born and living in Vilnius, noted that it’s impossible to live in Vilnius without knowing Russian and Polish. ‘I speak Russian and some Polish, after all, Vilnius is full of Russians and Poles’. She admitted that she speaks Lithuanian with accent: ‘I speak Russian a lot, even in my family (Laura Asadauskaitė’s husband, Andrej Zadnieprowskij, is a famous Lithuanian pentathlete) and during trainings. My coaches and relatives usually speak Russian, so I use this language as well’.

Source: http://pl.delfi.lt/rozrywka/asadauskaite-znam-rosyjski-i-troche-polski.d?id=59335471

Tłumaczenie Ewelina Zarembska w ramach praktyk w Europejskiej Fundacji Praw Człowieka, www.efhr.eu. Translated by Ewelina Zarembska within the framework of a traineeship programme of the European Foundation of Human Rights, www.efhr.eu.