Natallia Trafimava: Open letter is like a heart-cry

This was told in the conversation with Euroradio by the initiator of the open letter, the captain of Belarusian national female basketball team Natallia Trafimava:

“They've started accusing us of non-patriotism. I don't know how to explain to people that it is like the last heart-cry: "Look, we really have problems with that!" As they say, hope's the last to die, so we'll wait till the end”.

Let us remind you, that Belarusian sportswomen stated in the open letter to the Basketball Federation that they would refuse to play for the national team until the situation with training conditions improved. They also demanded to provide them better equipment - to give it in advance and in correspondence with the weather conditions.

Natallia Trafimava: “The conditions for training are in fact, let me say, not very convenient. We would like to come to the training and do our job without thinking of anything else. They provided us outfits nearly in the last day before leaving, we had no time to fit them. And when it is autumn, we don't need skirts, we need jackets! We need to get to the sports hall, to go outside, we don't sit in the hall all the time”.

According to the captain of the female team, it hurts them when they hear accusations of non-patriotism. Moreover, the girls care more of youth, who have to train in such poor conditions:

“Who can reprove me when I come to the national team with an injury, go out to the court and play for Belarus? I could have gone for a surgery with clear conscience and get into shape by the next season. It is a real honour for us to play for Belarus, to show we really can play, that there is basketball in our country.

We are in such age that we only have a couple of years to play left. However, there is youth, and we really want to leave something when we retire. We do everything for that”.

At the same time, the Federation promises to punish the officials guilty in the scandal with the basketball players. As it was informed to Euroradio by the First Deputy Chairman of the Belarusian Basketball Federation Valery Harelikau, they had taken the open letter with understanding:

"We have no aggression. The head, and the members of the Federation have contacts with the national team and they understand the problem clearly... Yesterday the head of the Federation read out the letter to the members of the Basketball Federation Executive Committee, suggested to clarify the situation... We shall wait for a meeting at the level of the National Olympics Committee, the Ministry of Sports and Tourism and the Basketball Federation. We'll clarify who is guilty".

Mr. Harelikau complained at lack of finance, claiming it was one of the basic reasons:

“We can speak of everything, there are no limits in perfection. We can speak about equipment, organization of training-educational process, financing of the team etc. But we should be realistic. We have no money to solve problems which can only be solved with absolutely incomparable financing.