"I knew I didn't say anything out of line. In that sense, I'm absolutely right" — Denis Lazavik on His Viral Quotes

Denis Lazavik

Belarus' No. 1

“[Question: How strongly did you feel the media reaction from around the world?]

I actually did feel it. Because I remember my friend Yaroslav, who I was streaming with — he messaged me about it. They cut out quotes from our stream. It was the first day of the Olympiad, the first round, which I was not playing.

And it bothered me a little bit. In the sense that I then started thinking about it, and whether we did the right thing and what is actually happening? But judging by my result, it did not have a big influence on me. That is, I played very well, that is the most important thing.

Let’s put it this way, it distracted me a bit, but not enough to make me play poorly. I thought about it, but I tried to face all the challenges with my head held high, so to speak.

But a lot of people supported me in that regard. And I knew I didn’t say anything out of line. I mean, in that sense, I’m absolutely right. The only thing is, for the future, I’ll know that something like this can happen.

[Question: What difficulties were there?]

I didn’t expect that. A bunch of random memes and comments, people were writing things on Instagram like: “What are you even saying?”, so to speak. There weren’t many people like that, but when you haven’t dealt with this before, there’s still a little bit of pressure.

If someone had told me it would turn out this way, I probably, firstly, wouldn’t have said a lot of the things I said. And secondly, I would have at least prepared myself. But it all happened so suddenly.

Plus, the Olympiad, plus having to focus on the game. And then someone writes something to you, and there’s a lot of discussion, and you realize that when you get back home, they won’t exactly be patting you on the head there either, and somehow it all builds up.

In general, everything ended well in that sense.”