Last minute instructions
19-yr-old super athlete Steven Solomon is winging his way to Barcelona and the World Junior Athletics Championships…next stop London and the Olympics. He takes with him last minute instructions from his 78-yr-old Jewish coach.
Steven Solomon takes off photo: Henry Benjamin
Fera Dvoskina and Steven Solomon
Fera Dvoskina arrived in Sydney in 1996 from the Ukranian city of Dnipropetrovsk. She had had an outstanding career coaching champion athletes in the former Soviet Union and set about establishing herself in Australia. Among the stars she has coached are 100m hurdler Debbie Edwards and two time 400m hurdle world champion Jana Pittman. She has coached Australian athletes competing in the World Championships at Daegu in Korea and has accompanied the Junior Team when they took the the track in Canada.
As she kept a watchful eye on Steven Solomon pounding the training track at Sydney Olympic Park, Fera Dvoskina told J-Wire: “I love this boy like as if he were my own grandson…and he is a member of a wonderful family which I love, too. I really enjoy spending Pesach with them.”
And what were the last minute instructions? “I told Steven to be in bed every night by 10 and not toeat any strange food. I want him to drink only water…and he must stay away from crowds.”
Vera Dvoskina met Steven Solomon who will represent Australia in the 4 x 400m relay at the London Olympics through the Athletics Australia coach Michael Khmel when we was running at Sydney’s Cranbrook school. Solomon has been an athlete for only two and a half years. “He told me he had seen Steven perform and thought my experience would be beneficial for him,” she added.
A philosophical Dvoskina added: “I am not so interested in the Olympics. He is very young and will have two more ahead of him. I am concentrating now on the World Junior Championships.”
Solomon will start competition in the 400m competition on July 10th with the final to be run on the 12th. The budding champion will have one day’s rest before taking his place in the 4 x 400m event…the same one he will don the green and gold for in London. His “adopted grandmother” leaves Sydney on July 7 to prepare her charge for Barcelona…and then on to London.
Dvoskina has a grandson of her own and daughter Irena is a paralympic coach at the Institute of Sport in Canberra.
