#swimforvanessa, an initiative carried out by the Austrian swimmers to support their friend Vanessa Sahinovic left paraplegic after being hit by a bus with two teammates, made the world tour on social networks in synchro family and beyond. She said being very touched by this beautiful care …
Vanessa, the whole family of synchro sent you all the week messages of love and support, how do you feel?
It’s amazing how much people want to support me now in this hard time and it’s a good feeling to know that I’m not alone.
What does water mean to you?
Water is the world for me. When I’m underwater I forget all my problems and the world seems much better than before. It’s like I’m hover in paradise.
How this passed in recent months, your progressions?
My condition has already improved a lot, and my progress from week to week increase rapidly.
How is the investigation of the accident, is that you mention it, is that you often redo the scene in your head?
No, I don’t think of the accident anymore at all. Now I really just concentrate on my future and my therapies to get better soon.
What are your goals?
My goal and my biggest wish is to swim again with my team mates in the water and practice hard. It will take a lot time to make my wish come true but I will never give up. Many people may think that I have to stay for the rest of my life paralyzed, but I don’t lose my hope that I will stand on my both feet again.
Please, to support her, you cave give a donation on this bank number, to help her make changes in her home and life style.
They aretripletsand are always together. During theEuropean games in Baku, they defied the greatest teams by winning a silver medal in duet and bronze in solo. Here is the story oftheAlexandri Sisters
Copyright gepa-pictures.com Swimsuit Atelier coquelicot Creation FRANCE
For the first time inHistory, Austrianswon medals for a synchro swimming international competition, isn’t it ?
Yes you are right! Austria is a small country compared to countries where there is a tradition in synchronised swimming. That’s what makes the difficulty to achieve a better place greater. Even if you are good, you have to prove that you are much better than the others (countries with tradition) to achieve a very good placement.
How can you explain your success ? Your secret
There is no secret to success! We only set our goals from the beginning of the year and we trained a lot to achieve our dream which was to win a medal in the European Games. Every training of the year was really hard and we were concentrated on this competition. It was the main goal of this year and we achieved it. In every training we pushed ourselves to achieve the best result that we could have. We didn’t only want very good marks, but the best possible performance for our routine. So we concentrate ourselves on the execution but also the technique because we knew that we had to be perfect on the technical part to have the chance to win a medal.
Why did you choose this classical musicSwan Lakefor the duet?
Last year when we had to choose our duet music we had to decide between two musics: The first was « The puss in boots » from Lady Gaga, and the second was « The nutcracker ». At that time of the year the best for us was the first one (Lady Gaga) and we began our new routine for the World Championships 2014 in January. Classical music takes more time to make a very good, original and interesting choreography. It’s also more difficult to interpret such a music. That’s why we decided that this year we will do classical music, because we would have more time and experience to do it. Our coach decided to do the swan lake because we have long arms and legs and this theme matches us well. So, on October this year we wanted to prepare something really original and spectacular that’s why we asked Anastasia Ermakova to come and help with our new swan lake choreography! The experience of working with her was just incredible. We will remember this one week for ever! It was our dream to work with her and learn some things from such an amazing synchronised swimmer. She gave us a lot of advices and helped us to improve a lot especially to the way which we interpret the music.
Did you reach your objectives for this competition ?
Yes we achieved our goals for this competition. We are completely satisfied with our performance and with the results. In the beginning we couldn’t believe that we did it! It was a dream and now it is reality. We wanted a medal. It doesn’t matter what color. Just a medal. And finally we won the silver medal. The figures’ differences were very big and that helped us a lot to score important points to take the second place. For solo the difference with the second place was only a half point. But what counts for us is the performance. And we know that it was good and we fought for it!
You were born in Greece and came to Austria a few years ago?
We were born in Greece (in Athens) but we lived in Volos. Since September of 2012 we live in Austria. We competed for 3 years in the Greece National team and we also participated in international competitions. Then, we decided to come to Austria, so we lost about 2 years of competitions until we took the Austrian nationality. Now we compete with the Austrian colors!
When did you start synchro ?
At the beginning we learned swimming at the age of 3.5 years old. Then, some synchro coaches proposed us to join their synchro club. We also saw the girls who were training in the swimming pool and that was something totally different and interesting for us. We were really impressed by the combination of music, water, ballet , elegance and we wanted to try this beautiful sport.
What is your dream ?
Our dream is the Olympic Games. We think that’s the dream of every athlete! It’s just the most important station of our career and it’s a totally different experience. Next year we will be the Austrian duet during the Qualification for the Olympic Games in Rio. We are looking forward to participating and giving our best! But the biggest dream would be a medal in the Senior category but if that happens, it would be in some years from now.
How do you manage the relationships between being both sisters and teammates ? Is theresome formof competition between you ? How decisions are made whetherswimming induet or solo ?
We are simply always together. We live together, we study together, we eat together, we train together…We do all things together. It’s something different and unusual because we are triplets! Of course we fight. That’s normal… but when that happens we try to keep it away from training. Together we are stronger and we know that we need each other to achieve the best possible results. Sometimes there is some competition between us but with a positive mindset. We think it helps us to evolve our attribution and always get better. But of course the main goal is to beat the other teams. The decision of solo was based on our results the previous years, so the coach decided to do Anna Maria solo. About duet, coach decided to do Anna Maria and Eirini because they match better. They have almost the same height and weight and their legs are similar.
Different personalities?
Vaso is very sensitive and she is like the « big » sister (we were born with 1 minute difference from each other) Anna-Maria has a strong personality, and Eirini is the « youngest » (3rd born) and she also has a strong personality but she is sweet !!! But we don’t know how to exactly describe our personality
What is the specificity of triples sisters in synchro ?
It’s very unusual. Twins are also special but not so rare. Especially in Baku lots of duets were made by twins. But we have never seen triplets, except us. The most important thing is that we understand each other without even speaking. We know our weaknesses and our advantages, that’s why we can work quickly and methodically.
We heard about thistragic accident in Baku where your teammateshave been violently overthrown by a bus, what happened exactly and how are they now?
We don’t really want to go into details about it. It was something terrible that we will never forget. The bus hit three girls of our team but only one is still in the hospital after having some surgeries. We only want to call you to pray for our girl and give her all of your positive energy. We truly believe that she will be healthy again and we send her our love. Our thoughts are with her and her family every day. The accident happened when we were going for training. So, we missed our normal training but the people from the organisation arranged new training hours for us. Our psychological situation was not good. We were very sad and frustrated from what happened. In such situations you look at life differently. We couldn’t believe that this bus could have hit all the team. Our first thoughts were that the accident could compromise our chances for a good performance because we couldn’t fully concentrate on our work. The shock was huge. But thanks to our two coaches we found the power to do it! They really supported us and helped us to forget it for a while. They turned the feelings of fear and uncertainty into strength and willingness to fight for what we deserve but we also wanted to show people that the AUSTRIAN TEAM is strong and that nothing can break us. A big thanks to our coaches!
Vanessa, the whole family of synchro sent you all the week messages of love and support, how do you feel?
How this passed in recent months, your progressions?
Last year when we had to choose our duet music we had to decide between two musics: The first was « The puss in boots » from Lady Gaga, and the second was « The nutcracker ». At that time of the year the best for us was the first one (Lady Gaga) and we began our new routine for the World Championships 2014 in January. Classical music takes more time to make a very good, original and interesting choreography. It’s also more difficult to interpret such a music. That’s why we decided that this year we will do classical music, because we would have more time and experience to do it. Our coach decided to do the swan lake because we have long arms and legs and this theme matches us well. So, on October this year we wanted to prepare something really original and spectacular that’s why we asked 
We are simply always together. We live together, we study together, we eat together, we train together…We do all things together. It’s something different and unusual because we are triplets! Of course we fight. That’s normal… but when that happens we try to keep it away from training. Together we are stronger and we know that we need each other to achieve the best possible results. Sometimes there is some competition between us but with a positive mindset. We think it helps us to evolve our attribution and always get better. But of course the main goal is to beat the other teams. The decision of solo was based on our results the previous years, so the coach decided to do Anna Maria solo. About duet, coach decided to do Anna Maria and Eirini because they match better. They have almost the same height and weight and their legs are similar.
It’s very unusual. Twins are also special but not so rare. Especially in Baku lots of duets were made by twins. But we have never seen triplets, except us. The most important thing is that we understand each other without even speaking. We know our weaknesses and our advantages, that’s why we can work quickly and methodically.
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