Last season, Runa became the champion of the Women's Superleague, and Eleonora Oleynikova took the MVP of the playoffs award. We talked to Elya about this and her other achievements.
About a career in basketball
– Why basketball? How did you start your career in this sport?
– Probably, as the coach said earlier in his interview, basketball chose me. As a child, I was short, but quite athletic. I had a very small body, but long arms, long legs, and I ran fast. The coaches from the SSOR Trinta came to our school and invited several people from my class to the basketball section. They chose tall girls and me. I was very surprised, came home and said: «Mom, I was invited to some basketball! I don't understand why. I don't want to». In the end, my mother said: «Let's try, why not». I have been trying for 16 years now, I play basketball with great pleasure.
– When did you realize that basketball would become your profession? Was there a specific moment or were you always focused on this?
– As a child, I definitely did not focus on professional sports – everything just went its own way. I went to a good school and played basketball at the same time. Education and sports have always gone hand in hand, even now they all go hand in hand. I was the leader of my team at the sports school, then I was invited to play in the Youth Basketball League – I was successful there too. And so it goes, when everything goes well for you, you understand that in general you can make it in professional sports. Naturally, I put as much effort into all my training as I could, and devoted a lot of time to it. Sometimes I had to skip school, come to four lessons, and skip three more lessons to get to training. A lot of effort was put into reaching a professional level. It worked out largely thanks to my mother, she helped me a lot.
- Author: Vladislav Mashurov
- Source: PBC Runa
