2024-04-13 07:52:20
Manto’s hearing has been impaired since childhood (his parents are also hearing impaired), but this did not prevent him from living an active life. The boy attended an ordinary school, where the teachers, knowing about his disorder, made him sit in the front row in front of them so that he could hear them better. In his teens, when his hearing got worse, he started wearing hearing aids.
At school, Mantas attended dance, football, basketball, swimming – his interests kept changing – until at the age of ten, invited by a classmate, he went to Greco-Roman wrestling training.
“It happened in 2001, and this sport stuck to me so much that I have been training for 23 years, and I am already working as a coach myself. I liked wrestling because it is a contact, individual sport, you know that if you work badly – it is your own fault that you do not win anything, if you work well – there is a chance that you will succeed, and it depends only on you”, said Mantas.
At first, he didn’t see wrestling as a lifelong choice, he just played sports in his spare time and sometimes scared the kids at school with his abilities, who made fun of his disability.
Mantas started taking sports more seriously around 2011, when he was sent to participate in the European Deaf Championship for the first time – then he saw that sports can help you see the world and get solid grades, but you have to look at it not as a hobby, but as a work.
Around the same time, he realized that in order to achieve victories in professional sports, he would have to change his coach, even though he was very attached to the first coach, Algimantas Raupelis. “It’s possible that if it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have become a wrestler. He was not only a good coach, but also a very good person, for me, you could say, he represented my grandfather, whom I lost early. There were life situations when he helped me, took care of me and worked hard for me,” said the athlete.
This one is easy to work with
I asked the current coach of Mantas, Saulius Liaugmins, who has been working with him for a dozen years, if he was uncomfortable starting to train a hearing-impaired young man? “At first I didn’t even notice that Mantas couldn’t hear – it became clear later as his hearing loss progressed. But this does not prevent us from working together, just as it does not prevent him from achieving victories”, said the coach.
When they started working together, Mantas had no major achievements. But it didn’t take long to get them.
“From the very beginning, I saw that Mantas is a very hard-working, persistent young man who is determined to achieve his goal. Once he believed he could really achieve it, the victories poured in. In this kind of sport, psychological qualities are also very important – the desire to win, stubbornness, will. There are moments when it seems that the strength is completely gone, but you have to pick yourself up and “I can’t” fight on. In wrestling, nobody puts you on the bench to rest. For the first time, Mantas became the World Deaf Champion in Iran, soon followed by victories in the Lithuanian Healthy Championships,” the coach recalled.
He praised Manta not only for his stubbornness and will, but also for his personal qualities. “He is not only a great athlete, but also a good person, he has a beautiful family. He is dutiful and responsible, if plans change, he immediately informs me about it, there is no need to chase him – it is easy to work with such a person”, said S. Liaugminas.
Well, MKSinkevičius did not spare nice words for the team of the Lithuanian Deaf Sports Committee, which unconditionally cares and helps him, makes it possible for him to go to training camps, takes care of his health, providing medical care, etc.
Won all the titles
MKSinkevičius counts that he has won medals from 9 different championships:
* 2011 European Deaf Championship, Armenia, 3rd place;
* 2015 European Deaf Championship, Georgia, 1st place;
* 2016 World Deaf Championship, Iran, 1st place;
* 2017 Deaf Olympics, Turkey, 3rd place;
* 2018 World Deaf Championship, Russia, 2nd place;
* 2019 European Deaf Championship, Belarus, 2nd place;
* 2021 World Deaf Championship, Turkey, 1st place;
* 2022 Deaf Olympics, Brazil. 1st place;
* 2023 World Deaf Championship, Kyrgyzstan, 1st place.
He is especially pleased with the victories in wrestling with the hearing, of which he has quite a few: he became the champion of Lithuanian Greek and Roman wrestling 4 times, defeating opponents who do not have a disability.
What impressions did such exotic countries like Brazil and Kyrgyzstan leave for him in recent years? “In Brazil, we lived in a hotel in a small town, from where we were taken by bus to training and competitions, so we didn’t see much. And I had to look more in Kyrgyzstan, but I was not impressed by it, there is a lot of chaos and disorder – after that you can better appreciate how beautiful and clean Lithuania is. Well, only nature, the mountains, where we went on our day off, are very beautiful there,” the athlete remarked.
Champion’s children also play sports
At the moment, Mantas is not exercising intensively because he has suffered a knee ligament injury. However, both he and his coach assured us that Greco-Roman wrestling is not a particularly dangerous sport – training pits opponents of a similar level against each other, athletes are taught how to fall correctly, and in general there is a risk of injury in various sports.
When he regains his form, MKSinkevičius will prepare for 2025. For the Deaf Olympic Games to be held in Tokyo. For now, he trains children at the Kaunas sports school “Gaja”, and his greatest and most gratifying achievement as a coach is the 3rd place medal won by his student at the European Youth Championship.
I asked S.Liaugmins if Mantas, who started working with children himself, asked him for advice on how to educate young athletes? “We communicate a lot with him, we also talk about training, but I wouldn’t say that I advise him – I would say that we have a friendly discussion about it,” replied S. Liaugminas.
MKSinkevičius’s whole family is sporty – his wife used to do gymnastics, now she goes to the gym for fun, her six-year-old son attends football, and her seven-year-old daughter – swimming, because the parents have no doubt that sports improve children’s physical fitness and teach them discipline.
“I’m going to take my son to Greco-Roman wrestling training later – maybe he’ll be hooked on it, like I once was. But there will definitely be no coercion here,” MKSinkevičius said.
2024-04-13 07:52:20