Russian short track skater Sofya Prosvirnova announced her transfer to the Danish national team on social networks. The athlete thought about the decision for a whole year. There is no need to look for political motives in this act. Sofia is married to Danish speed skater Viktor Torup. Training and performances at home simply would not allow her to see her husband often.
Prosvirnova and Torup met four years ago. The couple spent the coronavirus lockdown together in Portugal, and in 2021, Victor proposed to his beloved. The newlyweds played their wedding in Denmark, where they plan to live.
The Russian woman is even going to change her specialization and go to speed skating. Torup himself specializes in medium and long distances. In Beijing, he finished fifth in the mass start. For Denmark, this result was a huge achievement. Therefore, Victor was made the standard-bearer at the closing ceremony.
Will Prosvirnova's departure become an irreparable loss for the Russian national short track skating team? At the Olympics, Sofya never got on the podium, although she made her debut in Sochi at the age of 15. There she showed the best result, becoming fourth in the relay. The Olympic champion Yevgeny Kulikov, who knows the athlete well, acted as an expert in this matter.
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“Now beautiful girls are growing up in Russia, who showed good speeds at the recent national championship in Ufa,” Kulikov said. “Sofya made a choice. She decided to link her fate with Denmark and even change her specialization. the most suitable. There are many examples when the masters of the short track switched to the speed skating oval. We can recall the Sochi Olympic champion in the relay race Ruslan Zakharov, who won the prize in speed skating in Beijing. «
Prosvirnova — not the first Russian woman whose heart was won by a Dane. Skip of the national curling team Victoria Moiseeva announced her retirement at the age of 27. After that, she married Oliver Dupont.
At the last World Championship, two curling players with the same surname competed in the Danish national team at once. However, none of them bore the name Victoria. It's just that the Dupont family is called the «curling clan» in the country. Oliver's two sisters became winners of the tournament. Moiseeva, on the other hand, preferred the role of a loving wife.
Marriage with a foreigner does not necessarily lead to leaving the Russian team. The heart of biathlete Ekaterina Yurlova-Perkht was conquered by a masseur from Austria. The wedding was played two months after they met. The couple had two daughters, but Ekaterina continues to compete in Russian competitions. The husband works as a physiotherapist for Austrian skiers. They even joke that he left biathlon because he did not persuade his wife to change citizenship.
The citizenship of the husband also does not always take precedence. American Vic Wild, having married Alena Zavarzina, went through a one-year quarantine to play for the Russian national team. In Sochi, he became a two-time Olympic champion! The then sports minister Vitaly Mutko was impressed by Vic's performance. He promised, in addition to the bronze award due to Alena, to write the girl a «check» for attracting a two-time champion to the Russian team.
In 2018, Wilde and Zavarzina were left without medals in Pyeongchang, and a couple of years later they divorced. Alena went to study in London, while Vik stayed in Russia. The snowboarder even won another Olympic medal — the bronze of Beijing. Now the athlete already speaks quite tolerably in Russian, although he did not try to do this in Sochi.
There is an example of Sochi bronze medalist Ilya Chernousov. The skier married the Swiss biathlete Selina Gasparin. The couple already has two children. Elena Vyalbe, President of the Russian Ski Racing Federation, gave Chernousov a free rein, allowing him to play for Switzerland. True, Ilya did not have much success after Sochi.
The Lithuanian NOC acted otherwise on the eve of the London Olympics. Donata Rimsaite, who became the silver medalist of the 2010 World Championships in modern pentathlon, was considered one of the main contenders for gold in the main four-year tournament. Then the girl married the pentathlete Dmitry Suslov.Rimshaite applied for a change of sports citizenship, but in Vilnius she was declared a traitor. Even the arguments of the ROC, listing Russian athletes who were given permission to compete for Lithuania, had no effect. Donata did not go to London.
Her compatriot Laura Asadauskaite became the Olympic champion there. After serving quarantine, Rimshaite played for the Russian national team — she won bronze at the 2013 World Cup and became the champion in the mixed relay at the 2016 World Cup in Moscow. However, in Rio, she took only 12th place. Donata's Olympic dream did not come true, but the girl is happily married, lives in St. Petersburg and has three children.
