Women Break into Billiards
Chatting with this slim and attractive girl, I could not shake the sense that she radiated inner energy and purposefulness, qualities indispensable for those who scale the peaks of success. Vika Nahorna, a sophomore at Kyiv National University of Physical Training and Sports as well as silver medalist in Ukraine’s first pool (eight ball and nine ball) championship, is a busy person but she still managed to find time for The Day ’s correspondent.
“Vika, what does billiards mean to you: a gift of destiny or accident?”
“I think both. When I entered the university, majoring in basketball, I soon took up research (the influence of sports on women’s health) and intended to go on with it. But then came Jorgen Sandman, a well-known Swedish expert and keen enthusiast of billiards, and I took to this sport (at first not without a preoccupation, like many others). And now I cannot imagine what I would do without billiards. For I again get excited at competitions, feel the joy of victories, and have found a new goal, the achievement of which requires so much knowledge and experience.”
“The past few years have seen the effacement of the facets of difference between representatives of the stronger and weaker sexes: women now box and do weightlifting.”
“Women who practice these sports are simply (pardon the expression) destroying their health, plus they are hardly spectacles to feast one’s eyes on. I would not advise anybody to follow in their footsteps, although nobody has the right to rob someone else of his/her right to choose. Conversely, representatives of the fairer sex look natural and attractive in rhythmic gymnastics and figure skating. As to billiards, women can successfully compete with men right now. Famous pool player Jane Belucas has proven this convincingly. The many-times medalist in world women’s pool championships once decided to play against what she thought were stronger men rivals. As a result, Jane took first, while the embittered male players, touched on the raw, banned her from participating in their contests.”
“‘My love, I will still find you wherever you are,’ poet Andrei Dementiev wrote. You, like millions of your peers, must be dreaming of this heartfelt sensation?”
“Of course, you can’t program love. But I would like to look into myself and see who needs me and who I need. In any case, I see my eligible man as romantic, clever, having a sense of humor and capable of... recklessness.”
“You were seen in the company of Andriy Mykhailovsky from the popular rock group Nich na Rizdvo (Christmas Night). Do you like this group’s music or... Andriy?”
“Andriy and I have been inseparable friends since we were first grade schoolchildren. We really have a great deal in common. We always help each other, confide our deepest secrets, and celebrate our birthdays together. I had long known about Andriy’s dream to become a singer and always supported him, and now I have finally seen that he is a very talented person capable of climbing his way up. As to the music of the group Andriy sings for, I will also say that I like it.”
“What is your vision of twenty-first century Ukraine and your place in it?”
“I would like to believe we will find at last the prescriptions to cure our ailing economy and Ukraine will become a prosperous country holding a fitting place among the states of Europe. I personally want to devote myself to billiards, i.e., both to play and train talented replacements (Vika is an instructor in the billiards department of her university —V.Kh.), and I hope the time will come when the names of outstanding Ukrainian athletes, such as Serhiy Bubka, the Klychko brothers, and Andriy Shevchenko, will be complemented with those of Ukrainian masters of billiards.”
