2003
World Championship
Budapest, Hungary

This was a very difficult championship for me, because I hadn’t performed for 18 months (after the disqualification). It was actually one of my first competitions after such a long break. And everyone understood that they were competing for a place in the 2004 Olympics. Some of the training sessions were in front of judges, and to be honest, I didn’t perform too well. They came over to speak to Irina Viner and asked her how she could consider recommending me for the Olympics. Perhaps, they said, it would be better to choose some other girl? The training sessions were hard in every respect, and my knee was killing me. But you know, I was given so much support by the spectators that I not only forgot the pain, I simply flew over the mat, performed absolutely perfectly and won the world championship. Despite the fact that Bessonova and Chaschina were in excellent form. But they made mistakes – it can happen to anyone in sport.



I remember getting ready to go out for my last performance with the ribbon. The fans had split into two groups: one group was chanting my name, and the other (fans from Ukraine) were supporting Bessonova. I was standing close to the Ukrainian fans and saw how hard they were trying, but the louder they shouted, the more calm and collected I became. “OK, then”, I thought, “I’ll give you Bessonova”. They just didn’t know me. And it’s a good thing too, because at that moment in time nobody could have lifted my fighting spirits as well as the fans from Ukraine. If I’d been standing closer to my own fans I would have worried more about things going wrong. But it was as if any depressing thoughts had been swept away by the wind and I gave a simply brilliant performance. A big thank you to them!



Victory in Budapest was a good boost to me. It helped me get over all my doubts and worries - both about the disqualification and about having competed for such a long time without winning the Olympics…After Budapest I left those doubts behind and began preparing for the Athens Olympics with renewed energy.