"I want the Ukrainian anthem to play so badly": the dream that led Liza to three golds

The series "A conversation with a champion's mother", part 4 of 6. ← Previous part

On 8, 9 and 11 July 2026, at the Dance World Cup world final in Dublin, seven-year-old Liza Sahalai climbed onto the top step of the podium three times — and the Ukrainian anthem played on a world stage. Liza's mother Anna told us the story you cannot see in the score sheets: this dream was born six months before the final — and it was not about medals at all.

"Mum, how does it work in dance?"

It all started with questions. Having seen the debate about Russians returning to international sport and the video of the gymnasts' protest, Liza began asking: "Mum, if an athlete wins, does their country's anthem play? And how does it work in dance?" Her mother explained: everyone comes onto the podium with their flag, and for first place the winner's national anthem is played.

"She never asks directly. She poses one little question, then another — and builds the picture for herself," Anna says. "And then she simply comes and says: I know what I've decided. I want the Ukrainian anthem to play on that stage this year so badly. Imagine — we're standing there with the girls, and the Ukrainian anthem is playing."

Anna admits she did not believe in it herself. She prepared her daughter carefully: "I said: darling, that's a brilliant wish, but don't count on it. You might come second or third — and that would be phenomenal. — 'Yes. But then the anthem won't play.'"

The Sunday of refreshing the website

First they had to get through the Ukrainian selection. The results were announced late on a Sunday evening — the family spent the whole day refreshing the results page. The trio got through, and so did both solos — including the contemporary piece "Hunting", which few people believed in: the choreography was so unconventional that colleagues asked twice whether it really was contemporary. "The choreographer, Hanna Kyrychyshyna, kept saying: you'll see, this will count hugely in our favour. We simply trusted her," Anna recalls.

A year earlier, after the news about the final, Liza bounced on her bed for two hours — "I was starting to wonder whether we'd make it to school the next day". This time her joy was different: calm, grown-up. "The mindset was: we carry on working."

"Yuniia is the one who'll be judging me"

The most astonishing thing about the weeks before the final is that Liza was not nervous. Her teacher Yuniia Furman's guidance had taken hold, and the children repeated it like a mantra: we are not going there to win. "When dad tried to say something about winning, she was almost indignant: I'm not going there to win, dad! And anyway — nobody there is going to be judging me, Yuniia is the one who'll be judging me," Anna laughs.

Before the performance her mother asked: "Are you nervous?" — "No. I'm confident in these routines, I'm confident in my movements. We've been through it all."

It was her mother who was nervous instead — but she had a rule of her own: "I had no right to show that I was nervous. Because she'd see it and think: why doesn't mum have confidence in me? I simply handed her over to Yuniia — and went into the auditorium."

Anna also had words she said to her daughter before every performance. General ones: "Set this stage alight and show them who you are." And specific ones for each routine. Before "Painting the World": "Liza, paint their world in colours the way you paint ours." Before "Hunting", where Liza is a predator: "Show them all your charisma."

Three golds — and one sentence after the anthem

The final's score sheets read like this: 8 July — "Hunting", first place among 16 dancers from 12 countries, 94.5%. 9 July — "Painting the World", gold again with a clear margin. 11 July — the trio "Shadows of Forgotten Names" with Mira Zakharova and Alisa Stepanova, a third gold. And three times over, that same anthem Liza had talked about all winter.

"I met her, hugged her, and then said: your dream came true. You heard it," Anna recalls.

What medals mean when the dream was bigger

"To say the medals mean nothing to me would be disrespectful to my child and to the choreographer. But hanging them on the wall and walking around being proud — no, not that either," says Anna. "For me they are confirmation that none of it was in vain. That every goal, if you go for it and put the work in, produces a result. If something ever goes wrong, we'll come back to these medals as a story about how you wanted something, you put the work in, and you got there."

Next in the series: Dublin's backstage — why a prop measuring 1.8 by 2 metres travelled halfway across Europe, and why the warmest memories are not from the stage. Read part 5 →

Quotes lightly edited for readability. The full three-year story is in "Liza's road".