You have to be a great adventurer to grow up in Hungary and then live in Australia, in New Zealand and South Africa, though perhaps it is even more exciting to spend your career travelling those continents and countries in the reverse order, spending years in each of them. Thus far, that has been the life of our European bronze medallist, Hungarian Cup winner, water polo player, Dorottya Szilágyi. The 24-year-old national team athlete grew up in Durban, Hamilton and Perth until the age of 16 and now lives in Dunaújváros.
“I was quite small in South Africa, so I mainly remember the local fauna, which I found very interesting, we went back on a safari when I was about twenty to relive the memories,” says Dorottya, the daughter of the water polo coach Péter Szilágyi. – “In New Zealand, however, I took part in my first pool trainings at the age of six, and my father became my trainer, because we lived in those places as he worked there. In the meantime, I also tried other sports: I played netball, which is similar to basketball and is very popular there, and I also did gymnastics. I arrived in Australia after a detour in Hungary as a ten-year-old, so it was perhaps the most significant places in my childhood. Here, in addition to other sports, I also picked up diving, though, after an injury, I had to decide which sport to give my full energy without endangering the others. I chose water polo, but at the age of fourteen I also stopped that for a while.”
At first she was quiet
It might have been a kind of adolescent rebellion for Dorka to spend her time with her grammar school friends for two years instead of her earlier two training sessions a day, sometimes going running to maintain her rhythm. She says that those two, more relaxed years, were necessary for her later success just because the variety broke the monotony of competitive sports, for her then, still very young, self. She then rediscovered her long-unseen love, water polo. At that time, events around her accelerated as, at the age of sixteen she was invited to play in Dunaújváros, Hungary – her future coach, Attila Mihók, travelling to Australia to personally convince her of the benefits of switching and moving. The athlete, who had previously been invited to the Australian national team of her age group, also sought the advice of her sister, with whom she had been playing water polo for many years and, finally embarked on the great adventure, packed up and came home.
Hungaricum laude 