SZILAGYI Dorottya

General
FROM AUSTRALIA TO HUNGARY
During the 2012/13 season she moved from Perth, WA, Australia to Dunaujvaros, Hungary, to play for the youth team of Dunaujvarosi FVE. She was encouraged to move to Hungary by coach Attila Mihok, who happened to be in Australia with the Hungarian youth team. "I was 16 years old when Attila Mihok visited my parents. He knew I had stopped water polo, but since he had seen me play before he wanted to talk to me and not long after I packed up and moved to Dunaujvaros. Moving from the Australian coast to dorms in Dunaujvaros was a bit strange, but the city grew on met very quickly. To this day I have no homesickness for Perth. I didn't dare speak Hungarian at first as I spent most of my childhood with English. For most of my first season, I spoke almost entirely to my American teammate. If I stayed in Australia I might have never continued water polo. I don't know how my life would have turned out if Attila Mihok hadn't visited us." (origo.hu, 08 Jan 2021; waterpolo.hu, 07 Sep 2020; nemzetisport.hu, 13 Jul 2018)

CAREER BREAK AND RETURN
She represented Australia at elite junior level [U16] in water polo before taking a break from the sport for two years where she worked as a model. "When I was 14 I discussed with my parents that I would stop. Eventually it became a two-year hiatus, and I only got into it again at the age of 16. My sister also played water polo but she stopped, and I saw how little free time she had so I stopped too. Maybe I took up water polo too soon. I had been going to the pool regularly since I was a kid, and since my dad is a water polo coach I've always received a lot of attention. Because of this my life consisted of learning, training, and sleeping, so I was a little disappointed. I wanted to spend more time with my friends." (origo.hu, 08 Jan 2021; nemzetisport.hu, 13 Jul 2018)

WORLD TRAVELLER
Born in Eger, Hungary, she has lived in South Africa, New Zealand and Australia. Her father Peter Szilagyi travelled the world as a water polo coach. "We lived in Durban between the ages of one and a half and four, but obviously I can't have much memory from there, just of the people and animals that surrounded us. Then I lived in Hamilton, New Zealand, between the ages of six and ten. This is where I started playing sports, I still remember my first water polo workouts. Of the three places, I lived in Australia the most, it's where I grew up and became a teenager. Perth is my second home, as my mother and sister still live there." (origo.hu, 08 Jan 2021)