“When you’re an adult, you know how to combine other interests with sport.” Mullakaeva likes the content, but the priority is swimming

Short Course World Championship medalist Daria Mullakaeva has delighted us throughout 2023 with quality content about the Russian swimming team. We spoke with Dasha about how she manages to combine this with training, which remains a priority for her.

“It’s not like I suddenly picked it up and started doing it,” says Dasha. “It’s not like one day I woke up and said, ‘From today on, I’m going to be a blogger.’ » I didn’t have a super specific goal and I certainly didn’t want to draw more attention to myself through it. At training camp we trained and worked as usual. An idea appeared and I implemented it without leaving my main activity.

— Who was the ideological inspiration for the video with the dance of Vitta Vladimirovna Novozhilova?

— Vitta Vladimirovna is magnificent! She dances and prances through life and is ready to share her energy. The music just played and she started dancing. Live emotions are simply the coolest thing. I asked him if it was possible to post it? She replied: “Yes, of course, publish it. »

— How did you come up with the idea of ​​making a video with Tatyana Gaidai?

– Yes, it was also spontaneous. We crossed paths with Tanya on Krugly Street and shot a video in 5-10 minutes. Basically, I don’t want this to take up a lot of my time and energy.

— Doesn’t the coach swear?

“She’s an absolutely wonderful person.” She understands that I am already an adult. When you’re young, some things can distract you from training, but when you’re an adult, you have a mortgage, you know how to prioritize, you know how to combine your interests, and that’s a different story.

– Do you have a mortgage?

– Of course.

— What do you think is easier to cover: the salary of a national team athlete or SMM?

— If I had followed SMM, I could have earned more, but I love swimming, I love training, and now I do it more for the idea than for the money.

– And before?

— Previously, there were more opportunities to earn money while swimming. We went to international competitions, there were World Cup stages. I’m now trying to achieve a certain level of results, so I can’t gain much yet.

— We recently spoke with Sergei Fesikov. I asked him if it was offensive that they called him a relay runner. Wasn’t it offensive to be seen more as a relay runner? It’s so depersonalizing.

— Honestly, I myself understand that in the relay race I can realize myself more. Some additional noises are disabled. And in general, relay races are a separate psychology. I may swim worse in my personal race, but in my leg of the relay, I just break.

— So you give your own meaning to the word “relay runner”?

– Yes, it would be cool to be a kind of Federica Pellegrini – it’s impossible not to dream of it. And of course, when you compete, you want to win your race. Every athlete should come for this purpose. But helping the team win the relay is also a special feeling. At first, the girls and I had some kind of personal rivalry, but now I communicate well with all the girls. This also changes with age, you realize that the main thing is to win against yourself.

– But where does this rivalry come from – “I must be better than her” – in childhood?

“It’s like the initial motivation.” We had ten girls in our squad who were ready to kill each other. How did we fight?! You can’t even imagine. Or remained constant. Dmitry Petrovich simply said: “They stopped screaming, pulled themselves together and swam.” We have never fallen into the trap of our provocations – we work and that’s it. Now, looking back, I can say that we gave a lot of ourselves thanks to this youthful enthusiasm. I then showed excellent results. To this day, they win the championship with the same result as I did then.

— You said you could earn more in the media. Many athletes who create their own channels and start doing interviews are faced with the fact that there are few views on these materials that they thought they absolutely had to get.

“And I have no illusions about that.” I understand that the media coverage will not be like that of football.

https://t.me/ulyana_klyueva/496

— Alla Shishkina did a good job in the interview with Sofia Pozdnyakova, but she will never be as opinionated as Lolita.

“It’s certainly a shame, but you have to understand that swimming, like most sports, is not that high-profile. And what I’m doing is just a small contribution to bringing attention to the sport. Look at Nikita Nagorny. I believe he took the interest in artistic gymnastics to a new level. He’s just a great guy.