Games star fails to win support

By Shaun Inguanzo
LALITA Yauhleuskaya should be a household name if her sporting accolades are a measuring stick for success.
But the Belarussian ex-patriate has no sponsors and only the support of her husband and the Dandenong Russian community following her medal blitz at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games.
Ms Yauhleuskaya stormed the pistol shooting categories of .22 calibre and air with three gold and one silver medal.
The 42-year-old Belarussian ex-patriot began shooting at the age of 14 and left her homeland, where the government paid athletes to train and compete, to follow her husband who pursued a job as a gunsmith in Dandenong.
In 2002 she gained permanent residency status on the grounds of exceptional talent and began shooting for Australia.
She has since won a total of six Commonwealth gold medals, an Olympic bronze, holds a world record and has already qualified for the Beijing Olympics in 2008.
But the money, she says, is no longer in the sport, and her family, including two children, relies solely on her husband’s income to survive.
Ms Yauhleuskaya’s heavy training regime keeps her out of work and it is only for the Australian Shooting Association’s financial assistance that she can fly overseas to compete in World Cup and Olympic qualifying events.
To add to her frustrations, she said the Department of Immigration had taken a tougher stance on her mother coming from Belarus to stay and look after her two children when her shooting schedule became busy.
The most recent incident, she said, was when her mother was forced to return to Belarus just weeks before the Commonwealth Games, a period she was most needed to care for Lalita’s two children.
But now Dandenong’s Russian Welfare Society is helping Ms Yauhleuskaya to hunt for sponsors.
Community development officer Janene Blanchfield Brown said for her commitment to Australian sport, Ms Yauhleuskaya deserved more attention from sponsors, and from the community. She called for anyone interested in pledging their support for Ms Yauhleuskaya to contact the society on 9793 5955.