Raising healthy children requires considerable effort and attention from parents. But often, when parents are ready to make these efforts, children themselves are not ready for sports. Their decisions, their interest in a particular sport, and their readiness for systematic training are influenced by many factors that must come together in the right constellation. Professional basketball player, entrepreneur and mother of four Elena Gulyamova spoke about the role of a coach and the right approaches to identifying children’s sports talents as part of the special project of the Komersant ukrainskyi
publication “Children’s Sports: a Business that is impossible without…” .
Elena, just before the war started, you and your team Budivelnyk won the Ukrainian Cup. So all this time you have been combining further development of your professional career with your own business projects and raising four children. So, is the rule of “ending your sports career before 30”, which we often hear from sceptics, a myth?
We are all different. And sports are different too. There are no canons or prohibitions not to go on the field from a certain age. It all depends on the athlete, on their willingness to work on themselves, on their physical fitness, etc. For many of us, sport has become a lifestyle since childhood. That is why even the end of professional performances does not lead to a complete abandonment of sport. Some people start coaching careers, while others change their activities to more administrative ones, which, one way or another, continue to be connected to sports.
In fact, since my student years, I realised that I had to have another, additional job to go with my sports ambitions. That is why, in addition to coaching education, in my case, it was a significant experience in marketing. And today it often forms the basis for the development of my own entrepreneurial projects.
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Women’s basketball in Ukraine is now less popular than men’s basketball, why is that?
Well, this is a very complex question. There is no short answer to it. There are issues of availability of schools, accessibility of training within walking distance, availability of good coaches. And there is also, for example, the stereotype that basketball adds height to girls, which is absolutely not true.
I would also mention the stereotypical thinking of parents. You would agree that mothers often choose dance or gymnastics classes for their girls without even considering other options.
But there is no such thing as a bad sport. There are aptitudes, abilities, physical features of the body structure that may indicate that this child is likely to succeed in basketball, and that one in, for example, swimming.
So how do you choose the right sport for your child? Your eldest daughter also plays basketball, while your son has chosen swimming. Is this their choice? Or is it your recommendation as a person who knows more about sports than the average mum?
In my case, it is purely their choice. And if they were talking about other hobbies, they could also count on my full support. I strongly believe that children should never be held hostage to their parents’ sporting ambitions. And I would like all mums and dads to understand this.
The question of how to choose the right sport is a bit more complicated. If a child is interested in football first and then tennis, I believe that they should be given the opportunity to try both.
If you go deep enough into the issue of choosing a sport, then a DNA test can be useful. Probably everyone has heard that they exist. So, a DNA test can quite clearly answer the question of a child’s genetic predisposition to marathon endurance, for example, or to building muscle tissue. And then, when choosing a sports section, you can rely on this knowledge. It is all the more relevant when it comes to a child’s seriousness about their future sports career.
When the war broke out, the children’s sports business, like all other businesses in general, suffered a significant shock. A large number of schools ceased to exist. As a result, 16 per cent of schoolchildren are currently not involved in sports at all. As a person who actively supports various children’s sports teams and clubs, why should others do the same?
For me, the answer to this question is simple – because our country has a great future. And it will happen only when our children grow up physically and mentally healthy. It is sport that gives them this chance from childhood. And all those who are opening sections, establishing schools and training teams today are, without exaggeration, heroic people. During the war, they are taking care of the most valuable thing in our country. About its potential.
When we support the army, and everyone does it, without exception, we contribute to the future victory. And when businesses (from small to large) support at least one small children’s team, they are making the best investment in the future of Ukraine after our victory.
I would really like this simple truth to be known and professed by all potential sponsors and partners of children’s sports. I would like our entrepreneurs to choose children as a vector of social responsibility for their business and literally compete with each other in the number of teams they support. And for all of us, as consumers of goods and services, to give priority to those producers who are focused on investing in our children.
