Kristina Valjas, 29, went to the Olympic Games in Beach Volleyball to represent Canada last summer. This olympian woman and her teammate Jamie Broder made a top 10 ranking.

Her experience at The Olympics was amazing, she was so honored and proud to be on Team Canada. “Playing on Copacabana beach in front huge crowds  to represents my country was a little bit scary, but so awesome!”- said she. This fantastic athlete will never forget the amazing feeling of getting to live her dream and play her favourite sport at the highest level.

At 18, she joined an indoor Volleyball club when she was 16, but his beach volleyball player started playing this summer sport when she was in University.

She likes this activity because she can see herself improving all the time. ” It’s such a challenging sport, and altough I have already been to the Olympics, there is still so much I can do to improve!”- she said. She thinks that even if she trains 2 hours a day on sand, 5 days a week,  she is still in a learning process.

Kristina next goal is to learn and practice a new position. She has always been a blocker( position at the net which serves to block the ball on the opposite side), and next year she will be teaming up with another blocker. ” We will share the duty of blocking and defending, It’s something new for me, and I am looking forward to the challenge of being a defender.”

Beach Volleyball is a complex sport and it can be difficult.” Something that is so important and so difficult is mental toughness. At the highest level in this sport, every team can bump, set and spike the ball, but it’s the teams that have trained themselves to stay tough and keep believing that are successful. Everybody makes mistakes, so it’s important to have a positive attitude to learn from them quickly and move on to become stronger.” – explained Kristina

Even if this woman trains a lot, she still takes a break outside of the beach. She loves to spend time with her dog called Pasqualie, they go on long walks. She enjoys walking through Toronto, where she was born.

Kristina Valjas is a woman who made her dream come true, we wish her luck…

(edited by Samuel Castonguay)