Tokyo Olympics: Elena Zdrokova, the shooting star of Russian rugby

Elena Zdrokova and the Russian women's rugby sevens team will compete in the Tokyo Olympics.

© Russian Rugby Sevens Federation

Text by: Daniel Vallot Follow

5 mins

She danced until the age of sixteen and dreamed of ballets and choreography.

She became a rugby sevens player and will represent Russia at the Tokyo Games!

A formidable machine for scoring tries, Elena Zdrokova can count on her speed, but also on the reflexes acquired, according to her, thanks to classical dance.

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From our correspondent in Moscow,

The first time Elena Zdrokova touched a rugby ball, she was 16 years old and had never seen a single image on TV of this sport, which is relatively unknown in Russia.

In Novosibirsk where she grew up, in the heart of Siberia, it is usually gymnastics, figure skating or classical ballet that little girls dream of.

"

 In Russia, parents enroll their children in dance from kindergarten, it's in our culture,

" she laughs.

In New Zealand, they play rugby when they are very young, and we're dancing

!

I didn't dream of dancing at the Bolshoi, but maybe of becoming a choreographer, or of teaching dance.

 "

Elena's fate changes in college.

Then 13 years old, the girl participates, almost by chance, in an athletics competition.

“

 There was no one there to run the 600 meters.

The teacher came and said: "you won't win, but that's okay!"

We had to plug a hole and I said: 

"

Ok I'm going to go ..." I ran, and finally I won the race

!

 »No more ballet and classical dance, Elena took part in regional and then national races.

She was then noticed, again for her speed, by the Krasnoyarsk rugby sevens club, one of the most famous in the country.

Then, it is the selection within the Russian team.  

A sense of rhythm and dodging

“ 

When she joined us, she was running fast, but she wasn't ready for contact, and that's important in rugby,”

recalls Andrei Korzin, coach of the Russian women's rugby sevens team

. But she has worked a lot, made a lot of progress and today she is one of the best players on the team. Her job is to score tries, and with her speed, she does it very well!

 "

At 15, Elena ran the 100 meters in 12 seconds, and even today, her burst of speed makes her a formidable wing, a practice scoring machine that largely contributed to Russia's qualification for the Tokyo Games.

But Elena adds another quality to her burst of speed: a sense of rhythm, and dodging that she says comes straight from her years of dancing.

“

 The dance gave me the coordination and flexibility that I need for certain movements in rugby,”

explains the player.

At the dance you say to yourself: "now you have to do this or that movement."

And rugby is the same: when you get the ball, you have to dodge, pass to the right or to the left… For me, rugby is a form of choreography!

"

Russian oval balloon

To devote herself entirely to rugby sevens, Elena Zdrokova had to convince her parents, who intended her for a career as a scientist. She also had to face the many prejudices that surround rugby in Russia in general, and women's rugby in particular. “

 The other day in Novosibirsk the taxi looked at me with wide eyes when it saw my bag and the words

'Russian Rugby'

on it. He said to me: "do you play rugby?" And he really couldn't believe it. If a woman is to play rugby, people think it has to be a mirror cabinet!

 "

Elena has fun, but deplores the lack of interest in her country for rugby. Because the oval ball has never been prized by the Russians - a disenchantment that dates back to Soviet times, when the leaders preferred sports considered to be more " 

popular

 ". “

 Here, when it's winter, everyone plays hockey, and when it's summer, it's football

! But that's a shame, because rugby perfectly matches the qualities of the Russians

: courage, self-sacrifice, daring. My dream would be for rugby to become the third favorite sport of the Russians, after football and hockey.

 "

Sanctioned for doping cases, Russia will have to participate

in the Games without its anthem

and without its flag.

But Elena Zdrokova hopes that this first participation in the Olympic Games will allow her sport to become better known in Russia.

The player does not dare believe in a medal, but she still hopes to get out of her group.

The competition promises to be fierce: Russia will face reigning world champions New Zealand, Great Britain and Kenya.

► To read also: Olympic Games: behind closed doors and state of emergency in Tokyo

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