Pint-sized wrestler Yana Stadnik is hoping her Olympic dreams aren’t forced into submission by bureaucracy.
Ukranian-born Yana, who trains in Salford, has been part of the British team since 2007. But the little star – who is barely over 5ft and weighs just seven-and-a-half stone – may not be able to compete at next year’s London Games because of immigration rules.
Yana, 24, does not qualify to be a British citizen – necessary for her to take part in the Olympics – until 2013, unless home secretary Theresa May uses discretionary powers to speed up the process.
The freestyle wrestler, who trains at the British Wrestling Academy on Great Clowes Street, has had her application backed by the British Olympic Association.
She said: "The Olympics is a special dream, but I don’t want to beg. I just keep training and waiting for the decision. If they let me, I will be very thankful. It will make my dream come true."
Yana loses up to 8.8lbs of weight during her intense twice-a-day training sessions.
She said it was difficult pushing herself to the limit knowing she might not make the Olympics.
She said: "It is hard to train for nothing and think maybe it might not happen. At the moment I have positive emotions – I have to be ready. It would be worse if I stopped training and then they let me in but I wasn’t ready."
Yana, who was a silver medalist in the 48kg category at last year’s European championships, comes from a family of wrestlers – her brother, Andriy, won silver for the Ukraine in Beijing three years ago. She hopes her success will give female wrestling – which has only been an Olympic sport since 2004 – a bigger profile in the UK.
She said: "Everything I do, I do honestly for this country.
"I want to compete for GB to help British wrestling, and also female wrestling, because here it is a very young sport. Anything I do get for GB helps bring more investors in the sport."
British Wrestling chief executive Colin Nicholson said: "Yana wants to naturalise and British Wrestling is very happy to support what she wants to do as an individual.
"She’s been here for a long time, invested a lot of effort and been winning medals for GB since 2007. She has a long track record of putting something in."
Yana, who lives in Prestwich, fell in love with the area when she moved over to help British wrestlers train almost five years ago.
She said: "I liked Manchester so much from when I first moved in. I feel myself here, this is my life now."
Yana, who enjoys walking, going to the cinema and visiting museums and art galleries during her spare time, hopes to study medicine or sports science at the University of Manchester when her days as a full-time sportswoman are over.
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She's not British and neither is bending the rules to take part in a competiion.
The London Olympics should be a time for BRITISH athletes to excell in front of a home crowd, not for athletes who have sought easier qualification by changing country. I hope that the home secretary has the good sense not to fast track her application and that an investigation is started as to why tax payers money has presumably funded an athlete to compete for the UK while denying British athletes the chance to do so and when she was always going to be ineligable to compete without 'funny business' with her application!
I would encourage people to state their objections to such actions being taken. A medal from this athlete would not signify British success in OUR home games but the buying of 'ready made' athletes rather than the home growth of our own.
Why not? Wrestle racism to the ground and hold it in a headlock until it's out for the count. Sport competition should be based only on merit nothing else!
If she wants to compete, try to be the best in her sport and perhaps win an Olympic medal, then she should be allowed to do so. Except she should be representing the Ukraine, not Great Britain.
She isn’t the first, remember Zola Budd.
And then there is Yamile Aldama. Cuban born triple jumper, represented Cuba in the 2000 Olympics.
Her application for a UK passport hadn’t come through in time so she then competed for Sudan in 2004 Olympics.
Now she’s got a British passport and is attempting to get selected for Great Britain in 2012.
Seems like she's another one that adopts a nationality of convenience , it happens all over the world in every sport, time it was outlawed .
If they can do it for Zola Budd ???????????????????
I dont see a problem aslong as she is proud to be british and speaks english and understands the Culture in this country im fine with that there is many people coming to this country taking benifits and sitting on there but she is doing well for this country and winning medals in europeans and increasing funding for the sport and gb team and she likes manchester which is a great city and for a small sport of wrestling im sure they need all the help they can get because no one has got an olympic medal for over 20 years so somethink needs to change and dont forget there is many athletes competing for gb that wasnt born here for exsample mo farah and we all loved his european and world medals
I dont see a problem aslong as she is proud to be british and speaks english and understands the Culture in this country im fine with that there is many people coming to this country taking benifits and sitting on there but she is doing well for this country and winning medals in europeans and increasing funding for the sport and gb team and she likes manchester which is a great city and for a small sport of wrestling im sure they need all the help they can get because no one has got an olympic medal for over 20 years so somethink needs to change and dont forget there is many athletes competing for gb that wasnt born here for exsample mo farah and we all loved his european and world medals