In the summer of 2013 I felt like I am the most motivated athlete in the whole world. Success at the World Championships in London made me believe that anything is possible as long as you truly believe in it and work hard as a hell for it.
I changed the way I live. Increased amount of trainings, refused weekends, started working out even at night time. Olympic dream was following me anywhere I go until series of obstacles put itself on my way... Injuries, equipment problems and strange non-skating situations would happen unexpectedly. Due to an injury I was forced to withdraw at Skate America, competed on painkiller-shots at Cup of China, my skating boots magically broke at the next event. In December at the University Games in Trento, I re-injured my ankle again as it was never healed but unfortunately it forced me to skip any trainings for 14 days as the things started to get worse. For the next 2 weeks my best friends were doctors and a medical center became a "home" to me.
I stepped back on ice on December 25th. I had to leave alone the tradition to be with the family on winter holiday and went to Los Angeles to my coach and training facilities. Of course, I didn't celebrate Christmas or New Year's Eve; my days off and meetings with friends were somewhere in parallel reality as well.
Easy to guess, this season hasn't been going the way I planned it to. Moreover, nothing was perfect this year. But my determination, tremendous support by my family and coaches, role models advice and comprehension that people from Kazakhstan and all over the world are there for me - helped me to stay on track, keep faith and never give up.
This Olympic Medal is the biggest award I could ever achieve for all the things I had to go through. I remember it as if it was yesterday, when I visited the SOS children's village, I said to kids that in order to achieve something, you actually have to sacrifice and work hard for it. A shorter version: you get what you pay. And this was another time I experienced the theory on myself.
I want to thank all of you for phenomenal support. There're so many messages, seems like it's unreal to read them all! But I'll try.
Thank you to my country, the Sport Agency, Almaty's sport department and Samruk-Kazyna. It was such an honor to represent Kazakhstan and the Presidential club at my 2nd Olympic Games!
Last year, I asked you all to, no matter what, believe in yourself because you can always go beyond expectations. And this time I'll do the same. Just believe. It works. I checked it twice.
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