LONDON, August 10 (Itar-Tass) — Natalia Vorobieva of Russia made history, winning Russia’s first Olympic wrestling gold in the women’s 72-kg freestyle, pinning her opponent Stanka Zlateva Hristova of Bulgaria in the second period – 5:0.
“Everybody comes into wrestling differently, parents push their kids into sport and I came to a gym on my own out of sheer idleness. In Tulun (her native town in Russia’s Irkutsk region) we had only one gym and there I came. By the way, my parents were absolutely against my idea, especially my mom. But later she was the one who understood me well,” she said.
“I was repeatedly told that wrestling is not for women. But everybody has his/her own point of view. There are so many things that a woman should not do, but to put it more accurately – she should do. She should sit home, cook and so on… But we live in the 21st century, many things had changed – women drive a car, do business and run enterprises. Why not wrestling? What about cooking? I will think about this later.”
Vorobieva said it was not easy to wrestle over stuffiness in the room. “It was too damn hot and stuffy – you make several movements, and you are wet through, you slip and fall,” she said.
“During wrestling I never wait. While my opponents drag their feet, I advance through speedy movements. Here I caught many of my opponents on this,” she said.
Natalia said if she had a baby girl, she would never want to see her wrestling and expressed the hope that her Olympic gold would draw attention to women’s wrestling in Russia.
“In St. Petersburg we have a four to four meters gym and this is too little space even for two wrestlers. We need good wrestling rugs to feel a wrestling circle, a zone, to feel like a fish in the water,” Vorobieva said.