AUSTEJA AUCIUTE SPENT the guts of four years attempting to obtain Irish citizenship and, just when it finally as though she’d cracked it last summer, she felt insulted.
Auciute had been resident in Ballybofey since the family moved from Lithuania. She’d been schooled at Sessiaghoneill National School and at St Columba’s College in Stranorlar. From the age of 10, she wore the vest of Finn Valley Amateur Boxing Club.
Auciute won nine Irish titles and a World Youth bronze medal with Finn Valley.
When it came to her application for Irish citizenship, however, she hit a roadblock.
In 2011, she won a bronze medal at the inaugural Women’s Youth and Junior Championships in Turkey and isn’t quiet sure how things went from that to being effectively barred from representing Ireland thereafter.
She’d been constantly frustrated after watching the opponent she’d beaten in Irish finals get the chance to box for Ireland at the subsequent European and World championships.
It was ‘her’ place, she felt.
Last summer, it looked like her wait was over. What followed felt like the fiercest uppercut she’d taken.
“I was on the verge of getting it last summer, but I got a letter then to say that I’d have to pay €1,000 for citizenship,” Auciute recalls now, from her new base back in her homeland of Lithuania.
“I’ve been living in Ireland practically my whole live, I went to school in Ireland and I boxed in Ireland all my career from I was young.
“I wanted so much to box for Ireland – why should I have to pay €1,000 for that?
“It was so hard because I’d train all year to win a National title and then the girl I’d beat in the final would get a place for European or World Championships.
“For a fighter who gave everything to be successful, that was so hard to take.
“Once I was offered here, met the coach and he said I could box for Lithuania, I pretty much had my decision made.”
At the end of 2015, Auciute packed up shop and headed back to Lithuania, where she now boxes in Silute under coach Vincas Murauskas.
She heads this week to Astana in Kazakhstan for the AIBA Women’s World Boxing Championships, where she’ll box under her native Lithuanian banner.
Auciute gave up everything to return to Lithuania to ‘follow my dreams’.
The existence now is lonely, though.
“It’s so different,” she says.
“I grew up in the Finn Valley Boxing Club since I was 10. It was a huge decision for me to leave there. I have no friends here. I’m living in the middle of nowhere and my coach is my only friend. It has to be done, though.
“I’m still and always will be a Finn Valley woman. The only reason I’m here is Finn Valley ABC. That’s why I am where I am.
[adrotate group=”38″]“It was so tough to leave them all. We were one big family. Everyone gives each other so much support.”
Her father, Vaidas, first took her to Finn Valley ABC when she was ten years old. In November 2009, Vaidas was killed in a car accident at Knox’s Corner, just outside Stranorlar.
Austeja leaned heavily on Finn Valley for comfort. She has left behind another family in bidding farewell to those yellow and black tracksuits.
“Conor Quigley (Finn Valley ABC head coach) was like a father to me – he was my backbone,” Auciute says. “He kept me going when I wanted to go the wrong way. I’ll never forget that and will always be in touch to let them know how I’m doing.”
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