Staff in GMIT’s Marine and Freshwater Research Centre in
Galway are celebrating the latest success of their colleague, Dr Olga
Lyashevska, at the World Judo Championship in Morocco where she won the bronze
medal this October. Earlier in the year
Olga was a gold medallist at the European Brazilian Jiu Jitsu championships in
Barcelona before scooping the silver medal in August at the World Masters
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Championship in Las Vegas.
Olga joined GMIT four years ago as an ecological statistician
and writes the code to reveal interesting patterns or dependencies in all kinds
of data. Her analyses and models at the
MFRC caught the attention of GMIT’s Medical and Engineering Technologies (MET)
Gateway where she has developed an additional role as senior researcher in data
analytics.
Originally from Crimea, Olga started training 15 years ago
when she was a postgraduate student in Holland and earned her black belt in
Judo after only five years of training.
After another five years Olga won a black belt in Jiu Jitsu, building a
reputation as a serious opponent in European competitions. Her involvement in martial arts doesn’t stop
at competing. For the last three and a
half years she has taught two classes a week in women’s self-defence and Jiu
Jitsu at Galway’s Point Blank Submissions martial arts gym. If you’re reading this and you’d like to join
one of Olga’s classes her message is: “Please come along, we would love to have
you!” When not competing and teaching
Olga referees at European and World championship competitions.
“Finding jiu-jitsu and judo was pure luck. I don’t know how
my life would be without it. It all started when I was a masters student in
Environmental Sciences at Wageningen University. I had a self-study week, meaning there were
no regular classes, just preparation for the exams, so there was more time for
sports. Out of curiosity I picked a random activity at the university sport
centre and decided to give it a try. The first class was scary but fun and I
haven’t stopped training since”.
“Now, being an instructor, I have learned two things. First,
you do not know whether you like a sport until you actually do it yourself and,
second, the first time can be intimidating but don’t give up. I enjoy teaching classes which allows me to
build connections with the students, see their progress and help them to get
better in sport and become more confident in life.”
For more information about Olga’s work, see:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Olga_Lyashevska/publications
