ASPANDIYAROVA Dina

General
FROM KAZAKHSTAN TO RUSSIA TO AUSTRALIA
Born in Kazakhstan, she represented her country of birth at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney. She later switched nationalities and represented the Russian Federation between 2001 and 2004 after her husband Anatoly Babushkin was appointed coach of the Russian national shooting team. After failing to qualify for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, she followed her husband to Australia when he was named coach of the Australian shooting team. She gained Australian citizenship in 2005 and represented her new country at the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games. "I lived in the era of the Soviet Union. [Unlike] it was portrayed in other parts of the world, life was not that bad for us back then. It got difficult after the Union broke in 1991. There was some relief when I was selected for the national squad of Kazakhstan. Since I was in the team, the government took care of my expenses. The decision to move to Moscow was a personal one. Moving to Australia was more of an impulsive decision. My husband was offered a job and he took it. You can say, my body belongs to Kazakhstan, my soul to Russia, and my heart to Australia." (Beijing, 2008; timesofindia.indiatimes.com, 26 Mar 2019)

RETIREMENT, COACHING AND RETURN
She took a five-year break from competing between 2012 and 2017. After her retirement, she and her husband Anatoly Babushkin were appointed coaches of the Singapore national shooting team in 2013, and in 2019 she took up a coaching role at the Gun for Glory shooting academy in Pune, India. While working as a coach, she decided to return to competition in 2017. "My husband has retired as a coach. Since shooting is all I have done all my life, I can't get a job in any other field in Australia. Hence, I have started coaching and [first] moved to Singapore to train their national team and now India. [Upon her return to competition] I went through all the stages from being a beginner because I had a five-year break, which seemed like an eternity. When you start to see something works for you, inspiration grows and you want to become better and better, you need more challenges, so you go to this competition and that competition. It was never about making the next Olympic team. It was about the journey." (Facebook page, 01 Aug 2020; shootingaustralia.org, 23 Jul 2020; olympicpistol.com, 2020; timesofindia.indiatimes.com, 26 Mar 2019; myactivesg.com, 01 Jan 2015; todayonline.com, 18 Oct 2013)