The centre back of the national team of Russia Daria Dmitrieva told MK-Sport about the changes in the national handball over the past ten years with the advent of Sergey Shishkarev to leadership.
— Everything changed! The fact that we won the Rio Olympics brought popularity to our sport. And, of course, Sergey Nikolaevich is the first person who started to develop handball after the Olympic Games and also before it, when he came to the HFR in 2015. When we came to the World Cup in Denmark and became the fifth there, it was already a good result. And we didn’t come to the Rio Olympics as leaders, and nobody expected this result. But it turned out that it so happened!
I suppose that Sergey Nikolaevich did a great job, starting from qualification for the Olympics in Astrakhan. Probably, something unreal had to be done to bring qualification tournament to Russia. Plus, we always had all the required equipment in the national team. Handball club CSKA appeared in Moscow in 2019, which claims to win all the tournaments every year. A new team was also created in Novorossiysk recently. The territory of handball is expanding, more and more people learn about our sport, it’s pleasant. For example, people in Moscow didn’t know about handball before. There were moments when someone asked: "Oh, girls, what sport is it?" We answer: "It’s handball". They say: "Is it with a long ball in water?" And when we talk about handball now, everybody says: "Oh, yes, we know! We know Yevgeny Vasilyevich, he often shouts". I think, it's Sergey Nikolaevich Shishkarev’s great merit.
— You played in CSKA, which was created from scratch by Sergey Nikolaevich. What do you recall from this time, what was it like and the atmosphere in it?
— It was great! When we talked with Sergey Nikolaevich, he asked me if I wanted to move to the club. It was a risky decision, but I wanted to try. I knew, that the first year would be without European tournaments. But I’m used to believe Sergey Nikolaevich, because I know that he is a man of his word and keeps all his promises. That is why I just trusted him and went there. I wanted to participate in this project. But it so happened that at the tournament in Denmark when we had a training session before the championship I injured my achilles. And Sergey Nikolaevich was also entirely involved in the situation: literally the next day I was sent from Denmark to Switzerland for surgery. I’m very thankful to him for his assistance in organizing it in such a short time. Achilles is a difficult injury, which requires surgery as quickly as possible, — Daria Dmitrieva said.
Photo: vk.com/rh
