2024-07-23 04:51:05
29-year-old M.Paulikienė and 23-year-old A.Raupelytė will become the “first swallows” – a pair of girls will defend the country’s honor in the Olympic beach volleyball tournament for the first time in the history of Lithuania.
At the Vilnius airport, girls’ faces were decorated with smiles, and their nails were decorated with decorations specially designed for the Paris Olympic Games.
“You will probably feel everything when you come to the field in front of that big crowd, then it will be „okay“ – now I understand where I am”, laughed A. Raupelytė, who started playing sports together with M. Paulikiene just a few years ago.
Having hesitated about her future for a long time, the girl from Vilnius turned to beach volleyball at the age of 17 – until then, the athlete tried to find herself in tennis, athletics, and basketball. Basketball is a very familiar sport for A. Raupelyte – the Olympian, who grew up in a family of basketball players, is almost two meters tall.
However, the athlete who left basketball and chose beach volleyball did not make a mistake – her and M. Paulikienė’s names will forever be written in the Lithuanian Olympic annals.
Before the Paris Olympic Games, a pair of girls competed in tournaments held in Switzerland, Austria and Latvia, and the preparation was crowned by a week-long camp in Palanga.
“Everything is according to plan. We had a very good camp, we worked out our mistakes, we are ready. Thank God that we are injury-free, now we just have to go to the field and fight”, added M. Paulikienė, who has much more experience than her partner.
The athlete from Tytuvėnai, who won the bronze medal at the 2015 European Games, spoke in more detail about the agenda planned before the competition in Paris.
“After flying to Paris, we will have several training sessions, we will have the opportunity to try out the central court, we will exercise all days before our competition, we will get used to it,” reasoned the volleyball player.
In the group stage, the Lithuanian pair will fight against the teams of the Netherlands, Brazil and Japan.
It is symbolic – the first match against the Netherlands will take place on July 28. This day will be A. Raupelytė’s birthday. The Olympian will turn 24.
“There is a lot of joy, it will be the most impressive birthday,” she said.
Speaking about the goals, the athletes remained laconic: “The goal is always to win everything, we don’t count, we look ahead and want to win everything.”
When asked to name the main favorites in the fight for a set of medals, the Olympians from Lithuania reasoned about the Brazil and USA sets, however, later they added that it is not easy to talk about the specific favorites of the Games at this moment.
“Often that top four changes. It’s hard to predict because in the last tournaments some pairs have performed worse, but maybe they are preparing for their peak for the Olympics, maybe they had more physical activity. The peak must still be the Olympics.
We have played against all the teams of the subgroup. It’s hard to say how it will feel when you have to play with 14 thousand. crowds of fans, but that’s what we’re a team for, to help each other. It will definitely not be easy”, reasoned the volleyball players.
The Paris Olympic Games will be held from July 26 to August 11. You will be able to follow their progress lrytas.lt portal.
2024-07-23 04:51:05