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Paralympic coaches Yuriy Vdovychenko and Iryna Dvoskina were teenagers when they first met at an athlete training camp in Crimea. Since then, Mr Vdovychenko has trained a host of Paralympian and Commonwealth Games medallists in the pool, while Mrs Dvoskina has helped Paralympic athletes bring home more than 60 medals for Australia on the track. After more than 30 years together, the husband and wife duo credited a shared love of sport as the winning formula for maintaining their cross-continental love story. Accomplished athletes in their own rights, the pair’s romance began while they were gaining their coaching degrees in Ukraine. “We were travelling on the same bus but my bus stop was three stops before Iryna’s,” Mr Vdovychenko said. “One day I offered to walk with her to her place because it was dark. From that time we started dating.” Their now 34-year-old daughter Anastasia Nishnianidze spent her first few years on the international sports circuit, with both parents head coaches of Ukrainian Paralympic teams. “We would pick cities with both really good swimming and really good athletics facilities,” Mrs Dvoskina said. “Sometimes Anastasia was staying with Yuriy, sometimes with me, but all the time she was travelling with us.” The pair said the cliche of sport lovers living and breathing their passions was very much applicable to them. “Every day we are watching tennis and discussing tennis, we are watching athletics and we are discussing athletics and we are watching swimming and discussing swimming,” Mr Vdovychenko said. The couple’s shared interest has paid off for them both professionally, too. “Because we don’t have textbooks for training athletes with disabilities we are making exercises and we are making the rules,” Mrs Dvoskina said. “I can go to Yuriy and say, ‘I tried this new exercise and I think it’s going to work for your Jessie’, and the same happens for me. My athletes are swimming very well because of him.” While both agreed the cancellation of the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics was a blow to the athletes, they were optimistic the Games would go ahead in August this year. “The big competitions are going ahead now which is a promising sign the Paralympic and Olympic games will go ahead. You can see with the Australian Open, the US Open and the French Open, there was a lot of anxiety but they are managing,” Mr Vdovychenko said. Vdovychenko and Dvoskina were not the only husband and wife team training at the Australian Institute of Sport. In 2018, world javelin champion Kelsey-Lee Barber married her coach Mike Barber in Canberra after the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast. In an interview with the AIS last year, Mr Barber said he felt like their close personal relationship gave him an edge when it came to bringing out her sporting best. “We were pretty young when we got together. One of my mentors said way, way, way at the very start, ‘Make sure you don’t fall in love with her’,” he said. “So that was good advice but I didn’t take it.” Away from Canberra’s sports campus, Bec and Dan McConnell were carving out their love story on the ACT’s extensive dirt trails. Representing the same team in the same discipline, the mountain biking husband and wife were rarely apart for longer than it took to take out their respective events. “Being able to share the passion and share the highs and lows I think is what has made it sustainable for so many years,” Mrs McConnell said. “We both understand what each other is doing 100 per cent and I think that’s been a pretty big factor.” Currently training for the season start in May, Mrs McConnell said the person on the sideline was usually wracked with the worst nerves. “When you’re racing, you’re in control as much as you can be of the outcome and what’s happening but when you’re watching you can see the facial expressions of the other riders and how they’re suffering or how they’re moving in the field,” she said. Worse than watching the mental torment, the pair had occasionally been right beside one another when things had physically come undone, too. They were cycling alongside one another in South Africa when a monkey jumped in front of their path. “I watched him get taken out by a monkey,” she said. “He was sliding down on the road in front of me; that’s probably the worst accident I can remember.” READ ALSO: While they both believed children would one day be on the horizon, the time for little McConnells carving it up at Stromlo wasn’t likely to be anytime soon. “At the moment I am probably in the peak of my career. You spend 10 or 15 or 20 years to be here so at the moment it’s got to wait but it’s definitely something we want long-term,” Mrs McConnell said. This Valentine’s Day the McConnells would celebrate by doing the thing they loved most. “Yeah, we’re racing our bikes,” Mrs McConnell said. Tier 1 XCO – a tier one event under AusCyclings National Cup for 2021 – takes place at Stromlo Forest Park on Sunday.
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Paralympic coaches Yuriy Vdovychenko and Iryna Dvoskina were teenagers when they first met at an athlete training camp in Crimea.
Since then, Mr Vdovychenko has trained a host of Paralympian and Commonwealth Games medallists in the pool, while Mrs Dvoskina has helped Paralympic athletes bring home more than 60 medals for Australia on the track.
After more than 30 years together, the husband and wife duo credited a shared love of sport as the winning formula for maintaining their cross-continental love story.
Accomplished athletes in their own rights, the pair’s romance began while they were gaining their coaching degrees in Ukraine.
“We were travelling on the same bus but my bus stop was three stops before Iryna’s,” Mr Vdovychenko said.
“One day I offered to walk with her to her place because it was dark. From that time we started dating.”
Their now 34-year-old daughter Anastasia Nishnianidze spent her first few years on the international sports circuit, with both parents head coaches of Ukrainian Paralympic teams.
“We would pick cities with both really good swimming and really good athletics facilities,” Mrs Dvoskina said.
“Sometimes Anastasia was staying with Yuriy, sometimes with me, but all the time she was travelling with us.”
The pair said the cliche of sport lovers living and breathing their passions was very much applicable to them.
“Every day we are watching tennis and discussing tennis, we are watching athletics and we are discussing athletics and we are watching swimming and discussing swimming,” Mr Vdovychenko said.
The couple’s shared interest has paid off for them both professionally, too.
“Because we don’t have textbooks for training athletes with disabilities we are making exercises and we are making the rules,” Mrs Dvoskina said.
“I can go to Yuriy and say, ‘I tried this new exercise and I think it’s going to work for your Jessie’, and the same happens for me. My athletes are swimming very well because of him.”
While both agreed the cancellation of the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics was a blow to the athletes, they were optimistic the Games would go ahead in August this year.
“The big competitions are going ahead now which is a promising sign the Paralympic and Olympic games will go ahead. You can see with the Australian Open, the US Open and the French Open, there was a lot of anxiety but they are managing,” Mr Vdovychenko said.
Australian Institute of Sport coach Mike Barber married Olympic javelin thrower Kelsey-Lee Barber in 2018. Picture: Nancy Johnson
Vdovychenko and Dvoskina were not the only husband and wife team training at the Australian Institute of Sport.
In 2018, world javelin champion Kelsey-Lee Barber married her coach Mike Barber in Canberra after the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast.
In an interview with the AIS last year, Mr Barber said he felt like their close personal relationship gave him an edge when it came to bringing out her sporting best.
“We were pretty young when we got together. One of my mentors said way, way, way at the very start, ‘Make sure you don’t fall in love with her’,” he said.
“So that was good advice but I didn’t take it.”
Away from Canberra’s sports campus, Bec and Dan McConnell were carving out their love story on the ACT’s extensive dirt trails.
Olympic mountain bike duo Bec and Dan McConnell take puppy Lenny out for a spin. Picture: Georgina Von Marburg
Representing the same team in the same discipline, the mountain biking husband and wife were rarely apart for longer than it took to take out their respective events.
“Being able to share the passion and share the highs and lows I think is what has made it sustainable for so many years,” Mrs McConnell said.
“We both understand what each other is doing 100 per cent and I think that’s been a pretty big factor.”
Currently training for the season start in May, Mrs McConnell said the person on the sideline was usually wracked with the worst nerves.
“When you’re racing, you’re in control as much as you can be of the outcome and what’s happening but when you’re watching you can see the facial expressions of the other riders and how they’re suffering or how they’re moving in the field,” she said.
Worse than watching the mental torment, the pair had occasionally been right beside one another when things had physically come undone, too.
They were cycling alongside one another in South Africa when a monkey jumped in front of their path.
“I watched him get taken out by a monkey,” she said. “He was sliding down on the road in front of me; that’s probably the worst accident I can remember.”
While they both believed children would one day be on the horizon, the time for little McConnells carving it up at Stromlo wasn’t likely to be anytime soon.
“At the moment I am probably in the peak of my career. You spend 10 or 15 or 20 years to be here so at the moment it’s got to wait but it’s definitely something we want long-term,” Mrs McConnell said.
This Valentine’s Day the McConnells would celebrate by doing the thing they loved most.
“Yeah, we’re racing our bikes,” Mrs McConnell said.
Tier 1 XCO – a tier one event under AusCyclings National Cup for 2021 – takes place at Stromlo Forest Park on Sunday.
