Early start provides springboard to success

JOHNNY WATTERSONhears how the gold-medal winning diver's love of horses brought her to Ireland

I HAVE BEEN diving since I was 10-years-old back in the Ukraine. Before that I did gymnastics for about five years. I started the gymnastics when I was about four or five. In the Ukraine we believe in bringing children to the sport when they are very young. I don’t know if this is right but at that age children are able to pick up things very quickly. As a junior diver I won some international competitions, some friendly competitions against other countries. I was part of the Ukraine Olympics squad but in the reserve squad, not the squad that travelled to the Olympics.

We had a very good squad in the complex at Zaboriho. It was a very good diving school. Everyone in the world knows the Ukraine is good at diving, so I was lucky. I thought you can’t be a reserve all of your life and after that it became a hobby. But it was also part of my life and it still is now.

Along with horses those are the two things I love. It was horses that changed my life and made me move to Ireland. When I was diving I also rode horses in the Ukraine and around the time I stopped diving I was working with horses and interested in them. I wanted more, more, more. I loved it but it was very hard to find a job working with them so I went to a company who were sending people to Ireland for one year only.

I was 24-years-old at the time. As I was still young it was not that difficult to move away from home. I was more brave then. If I had been older then maybe it would have been different. I don’t see myself in the Ukraine anymore.

I arrived in Ireland in February 2002 to come and work for the race-horse trainer, John Oxx. Although I had ridden horses I had no experience of race horses. I wanted experience and that was the main reason I came here. I’m still working in the stables and I am really proud of that. We break in yearlings. We also ride the horses and do training exercise with them. I live in Kildare town, just a couple of miles from where I work. I have only good things to say about working with John Oxx.

But diving is part of my life and I cannot keep it away and I think with my experience in diving in the Ukraine I can give help to Dublin clubs. The club in Dublin (Aquatic Centre) is just five years old and is called Dublin Diving Club and I think the standard in the Masters group has improved.

When I arrived in Dublin the Aquatic Centre had just opened and after my baby was born I took up diving again. I can’t live without diving but I have to be a mum as well. The recent competition was the 12th European Masters event and I was able to win gold medals in the one-metre and the three-metre springboard.

I am 31-years-old and the Masters age group starts at 25. My diving age group is in the 30-34-year-old group. This time, though, I was closer to the scores I wanted. I trained as much as I could and I was very happy with the result. I did my dives as well as I could have. I went over this time to Spain a little bit angry. Angry with myself. I had to get a result and I did. Now I can say I feel good about that.

Vladyslava Shapoval came to Ireland seven years ago from the Ukraine and quickly established herself as one of our best divers. She recently returned from the European Masters in Spain with two gold medals. From an early age she attended a school that catered for elite athletes. On leaving school Vladyslava joined the circus where she worked with horses. She is now working in the John Oxx stables in Kildare.