Interview with Olga Komyagina - Meseret Defar's Pacemaker

[Maria Imas]

Once in a while, I'm asked to translate some running articles from Russian into English. This time, I thought, the piece was interesting enough to post here, but I didn't want to do it until it appeared elsewhere online. Now I see that it is posted on letsrun.com and runnersweb.com. I'm not a certified interpreter, and I'm sure there are some problems with my translation, but I think it's understandable enough. Please go to http://www.letsrun.com/2008/olga0527.php or http://www.runnersweb.com/running/rw_news_frameset.html?http://www.runnersweb.com/running/news_2008/rw_news_20080528_Komyagina.html to read and see some pictures.

I thought it is pretty interesting to look at the pacemaker's job, and pacemakers are not interviewed often. Watch Pre Classic on June 8th - there may be another WR attempt in 5000m by Defar, with Komyagina setting the pace!

[Sasha Pachev]

Good article and good translation. I do not think you need to worry too much about it as long as it is readable, carries across the meaning, and  is grammatically correct. I have a different style, though, I like to re-write Russisisms completely so that the reader would not have a clue, or at least have less of a clue that the text was originally written in Russian. Maybe because I like the challenge of taking the concept from one culture and describing it with the words of another. But I think keeping those in has its merits as well, it preserves the original flavor. One time I read an article in Moscow Times (English language newspaper in Moscow) which mentioned that the driver of a vehicle was "in a non-sober condition".

[Maria Imas]

Sasha, I actually like to make English version appear as if it has been written in English to begin with, just like you. But that is a challenge which would require a lot more time that I have available. It's interesting that when I speak either language, I use appropriate idioms and don't mix them, but when I see Russian text in front of me, it's much harder to change the style. I feel like I need to rewrite the entire paragraphs, and then it's questionable how much of a translation it is. I do hope to avoid translating things like "в нетрезвом состоянии" directly .

By the way, I learned that Tirunesh Dibaba will also go for a world record in Oslo, about the same time as Defar, and she will also have a Russian pacemaker - Elena Zadorozhnaya.