Gunta Vaičule ran the 400-meter lap in Budapest with a result of 51.36, which is the athlete’s best time in a one-lap race this season. By the time they reached the semi-final stage, the people of Rezekne were separated by 0.09 seconds, ranking 27th overall.
“Analyzing the race and remembering myself in the stadium, it looked like the finish was lacking. I tried to switch to a wider step and I went a little too fast at the finish. It’s a fatigue factor, which I can attribute to the fact that it’s hard to start in the morning. I’m still satisfied with the result and I do not consider it a failure in any way. I understand that I was unlucky, but I have not made any failure or mistake,” the 28-year-old Rēzekne athlete looked back on her participation in the world championship.
Although there is physical exhaustion after the race, Vaičule pointed out that the moral aspect is able to compensate for it: “After the physically difficult moments, all those good feelings also come. Endorphins arise even despite the physical suffering. This is already the case for all sports. You can say that after 100 meters, no one wobbles and slouches for a terribly long time. I know again what it means to train for a short sprint. It’s a huge load on the legs. Every day I felt great physical pain that comes after training and heavy weights. Muscles scream from the load, but then grow even more turn and strength. We must be a bit masochistic already.”
“I always wonder what it would be like to go through the full cycle that sprinters usually have, when they have one relay, then they have their way several times and then another relay. How do they feel when they go into the arena for the fifth or sixth time? If we don’t have a relay, so it’s a maximum of two or three times when you get there. I believe that you can’t live through all the emotions that the stadium can give you. That’s why you have to go into the audience and sympathize with your teammates,” said the runner from Latgale.
Sports journalist Andris Auziņš asked a Latvian athlete whether it is possible to earn money from athletics. After sighing, Vaičule revealed: “I can survive with athletics. Right now, with the benefits that the Latvian Olympic Committee is able to pay, considering that we don’t have that many top level athletes, I can be among those who receive approximately the average salary in Latvia. For many years it wasn’t nearly like that before. I was able to survive even then. My expectations from life are not that high. I enjoy the fact that the training camps pay for me, that it pays for me to be in the championships. I don’t have to ask for it. I do a lot of other things now too , but I can’t work in a real job like that, because I understand that it wouldn’t be right to apologize all the time. I don’t complain and I don’t complain, because I’m not here for money. I know that very few people have such an opportunity. I’m guided by confidence, if I do everything according to the best of my conscience , then at some point in life it will come back, materially or non-materially.”
“Where can you prepare? In order to train for 400 meters, you need indoor facilities, where you can run around bends, in a circle. The way I used to train… you can’t do without southern training camps in early spring. If you want to run the circle discipline, you can only do it four months a year run in a stadium. For a lot of us coaches, the only way we can work is in basketball halls and some sort of weight room. How can you prepare for running if you don’t run? It’s not realistic! You can’t sprint on asphalt, you can’t run without cleats. The other factor is that these there are disciplines where the training is very hard. Other times I think why don’t I run 200 meters because then the training would be easier. It’s hard for those kids, no doubt, and who wants to torture them?” said Vaičule, outlining the reasons why there are no followers in her disciplines in Latvian athletics.
Gunta Vaičule expressed confidence that she will be at next year’s Olympic Games in Paris. Although the athlete was also supposed to be at the Tokyo Olympics, the decision of the World Athletics Association did not allow the Latgale gazelle to participate in the previous games.
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