“We dream of representing the DPR at the Olympics”: figure skaters from Donetsk organized a training camp in the Moscow region

Sports camps for 23 figure skaters from the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) were held in the Moscow region.

Young athletes lived in Novogorsk and trained on the basis of the Dynamo hockey team.

The youngest of them is seven years old, the oldest is 17.

As Oksana Kondratova, senior coach of the figure skating department of the Youth Sports School No. 7 of the city of Donetsk in hockey and figure skating, Oksana Kondratova, told RT, due to hostilities, training at home was suspended until August 1.

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“Due to hostilities, we suspended training in 2014.

Now they are shooting again here, and it is not safe to be in the city, ”says Kondratova.

olympic dream

As the coach notes, these fees benefited the children.

In Novogorsk, the guys were trained by Moscow colleagues.

“Thanks to this, we managed to exchange experiences and improve the training process,” says Oksana. 

According to her, the training schedule was very tight: “Here we have a non-stop training process for two weeks from 08:00 to 20:30.

It was hard, but the children coped and showed themselves worthy and showed themselves.

Kondratova herself has been skating since early childhood.

Her parents brought her to the rink - they dreamed that their daughter would become a professional athlete.

Even at school, Oksana became a candidate for master of sports, and after graduating from the university she began to train children.

Recently, she had a dream.

“I would really like the figure skaters of the DPR to represent our republic at the Olympics.

Our entire sports friendly family dreams of this.

I hope that someday we will wait for this, ”says the coach.

She notes that the quality of her wards' skating improves every year, as they have to compete with Russian athletes.

“After 2014, we were invited to Russia for competitions: Belgorod, Rostov, Vladikavkaz, Aksai, Voronezh, Ryazan, Krasnodar, Sochi,” says Kondratova.

“The kids had strong competition and had to work hard to reach this level.”

"We are from Donetsk"

Vera Chekhova, director general of the Lyudmila Pakhomova Memorial Skating School, who organized these camps, says that they did everything so that children could be distracted from what is happening now in Donetsk.

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“We wanted to give the guys an opportunity to change the situation, because we are for peace, for sports, for friendship,” says Chekhova.

According to her, because of this, they even made concessions for Donetsk figure skaters at the sports camp.

“We did not weigh in and even allowed pizza.

I wanted everyone to be comfortable first of all,” she says.

According to the general director of the school, the children had only two days off when they could see the sights - visit Red Square, go to Sparrow Hills, Poklonnaya Gora and visit Moscow City.

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In turn, the young skaters told RT that they really liked it in the Moscow region.

“You can say that we were tortured, but we liked it,” laughs one of the young figure skaters, Anya.

- We started jumping, spinning better, mastered new elements, jumps.

This is very useful for me - I plan to learn the program and defend the second sports category.

Now I have a third sports.

Masha, the youngest athlete from the team, had a birthday during the training camp.

“I got a lot of presents, but the coolest one was Barbie's Bakery,” says the girl.

- Now I am a young figure skater, but in the future I want to be an artist.

I love to draw and do rhythmic gymnastics.

Most young figure skaters dream of taking part in the Olympics and climbing the podium.

“In the spring we had competitions in Ryazan.

I really liked it.

In Novogorsk, we dreamed of seeing Olympic champions, but so far we have not met anyone.

But it’s still very nice to go on the ice, knowing that they trained here, ”says ten-year-old Lisa. 

The entire team of athletes has a single uniform - white sweaters with Donetsk inscriptions made of scarlet roses.

The guys explained to RT why the embroidery is made in the form of these colors.

“The suits were made to order.

We always wear them at competitions and go out for a workout, - the skaters explain.

“This is the symbol of our city.

Donetsk is the city of a million roses.

We are very proud that we are from Donetsk.”