Silver and bronze medalist of the European Biathlon Championships Yana Romanova On , she spoke about her emotions after the relay race at the 2014 Sochi Olympics.
Russians Romanova, Olga Zaitseva, Ekaterina Shumilova and Olga Vilukhina won relay silver at the home Games in Sochi. After that, Romanova, Vilukhina and Zaitseva were found guilty of violating anti-doping rules. Subsequently, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) acquitted Romanova and Vilukhina, and Zaitseva’s punishment remained in force, the Russian team was deprived of money.
“Sometimes we say: “Your whole life has flashed before your eyes!” There was something similar. [Перед гонкой] I remembered how I began to attend the sports section, how I began to win my first medals. And I realized that the stars had finally aligned and I had been given the right to participate in the relay. And I started to shake. And then I think for a minute before leaving: “How is this possible? So all my life I will remember that I couldn’t stand that! At this point I managed to move on to the technical aspects of the race. I started to think I had to turn left to enter the climb.
I went down the tunnel [после того, как прошла свой этап эстафеты], and I spent all my time there until the end of the race. I was afraid to leave the tunnel. I was so afraid to go out. I was afraid to go out and see on the scoreboard that the girls were fifth.
This is the tension that reigned throughout the Olympic Games. I understood that it was the last Olympic Games, it was the last chance to win a medal. And that made things unbearably difficult.
The fans gave me a bear before the Olympics and it was in my room. And before the relay race, I put it in my bag. And then I ran and shouted: “The bear helped!” The bear helped! We succeeded (laughs).
—Did they tell you to hand over your medals?
– No, they didn’t. I thought about it. When all this started, I even hid it. Then I realized that no one would physically come and pick her up. That may be little consolation, but we have it.
— Do you consider yourself an Olympic silver medalist?
“Yes,” Romanova said in Dmitry Zanin’s special report “This is our medal” on .
Source : MatchTV
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