Being an athlete is trying to
make your body perform as well as you can.
Be prepared mentally, physically, to be prepared for
something what might happen what you are not expecting,
to really pull the best out of you.
London '12 that was probably mostly replayed competition,
especially with the medal slipping out of your hands.
There are cheats, there are athletes who doped,
they were stripped from their medals.
The medal reallocation for that fair sport,
for that clean sport.
This is focused on the athletes who
haven't had that opportunity to celebrate.
I grew up in Birzai.
It's the most north part of Lithuania.
I have two brothers.
I grew up outside
because we were always in the yard playing.
I am Austra Skujyte and I do track and fields
and my main sport was heptathlon.
When I looked at those people who have one event,
of course they have to make it so perfect.
We don't have to be perfect in everything
but we always have something to improve
because we are never perfect in everything.
So I kind of like that.
Now I am a coach.
I'm coaching younger generation.
Try a little farther. To try after
this one. Just a little bit backward.
You blasted the dust out of it. Good.
It shows how many centimetres you jumped up.
Look at how the others swing with their hands.
54.7.
So that's it. So now let's do a few standard laps, OK?
Take your positions!
Attention!
As an heptathlete, making for Olympic games is very good.
Going into Olympic Games,
you always have those butterflies in your stomach
that makes you perform even better
and you turn everything off.
And then you completely enjoy it.
Austra is very motivated.
I will compare her from Greek mythology.
You have the woman warrior, Amazons,
so I will say that's a typical example nowadays.
In Athens, I ended up running even my personal best
in that 800 and I got the silver.
In 2008, it was different story.
I had some Achilles problems.
I ended up just not finishing competition.
It's always easy to quit.
It's so much easier to quit and walk away
but you never know what you can achieve.
In 2010, I asked Aleksas to be my coach
because my sprinting was terrible.
He was good in numbers. He was good in strategy.
He is very caring
and he is like a dad to everybody around
who has been coached by him.
London, that was already a little bit different
because we had Aleksas Stanislovaitis with us,
Austra's coach.
He, as a person, strongly supported her
and she was really strong
physically, emotionally, psychologically.
We were like a really good team together.
Actually, he got me in really, really good shape
that I was able to perform my ever best
in my all entire lifetime.
And so after three years,
I ended up being at the very front.
Heptathlon, it's a seven-event competition,
so we have four events in one day
and then three events on second day
and it's very important to have rest in between.
After the first day, I was selected for the drug testing
and I was set aside,
like I was not allowed to go back to the village.
While everybody else was going back to the village,
ate, had a massage and bath, whatever,
I could not do that.
I had to stay in the room until I give the sample.
I got back like at 12 maybe in the evening
and I wasn't sleeping well,
and the next day it was not as good as I was ready for it.
And so that damaged my second day.
I was so close.
I was very, very, very sad to...
..to lose.
And so ended up being fifth.
I am receiving the bronze medal because somebody was cheating.
I assumed that they had a situation in the past
and circumstances
but I know if there is a system of corruption,
sometimes it's hard for that child who is growing up
to know that there is another way.
I am Jurate Stanislovaitiene, wife of
Austra's coach, Aleksas Stanislovaitis.
I met Austra when I was exercising myself. Of course,
I got to know her better when Aleksas started to train her.
He died at the end of April
and in May the decision had been made.
And he always said to Austra...
He said, "I believe that one day
"you will get the medal back."
So I think he would have been extremely
happy because it was many years... he...
He believed it. He knew it.
At one point, it feels really good to receive a bronze medal,
especially when I found that I got an upgrade.
It was a joyful sound.
But also at the same time I know that
I don't have my coach with me to celebrate together.
He was the one that really believed in
what we did together.
It wasn't just me who is getting the award.
It's us as a team.
Thank you, and best of luck with your bronze medal.
-Thank you. -Thank you.
Lithuanian Republic's Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis.
Lithuanian National Olympic Committee President
and member of the International Olympics Committee,
Daina Gudzineviciute.
And on stage now, she, deservedly, Austra Skujyte.
Truth has prevailed.
And today is your glory. It is not the glory
of Lithuania or glory of truth in sports,
since you have achieved this with your own blood and sweat.
Congratulations! I'm proud of you.
- Thank you. - Thank you, thank you.
Good luck to you. You're amazing.
- Thank you very much. - Thanks very much to you.
To all my trainers with whom I trained...
They are like sculptors. They made an athlete out of me.
They made me a person and an honest fighter.
Also, thank you to Dalius Barkauskas...
doctor, massage specialist,
therapist and everything else...
psychologist, friend, sometimes trainer...
when no trainer was beside me.
Certainly, I want to thank
Aleksas Stanislovaitis,
but he is not with us here,
sadly, but I would like so much to give him a hug
and to celebrate this win with him.
I just really hope that some day some of my athletes
could experience something so great and big.
That's my dream, to get somebody else there.