Upon a nomination from Contemporary Art Curator, my personal art journey has been turned into a book. It is now available on
Amazon, as well as through global platforms such as
Barnes & Noble,
Blackwell’s, and
Booktopia.
❤️ MET WITH PEŤKA VLHOVÁ IN STUDIO ❤️
TEASER: Catch us on TV — airing near the end of 2025
A second that spoke louder than any spotlight ever could.
📰 CRITICS IN CONTEMPORARY ART CURATOR MAGAZINE
"In the contemporary art scene, where the fusion of disparate disciplines has become a norm yet often lacks depth, Alexandra Dyalee emerges as a singular figure, bridging the gap between mathematical formalism and emotive human expression. This ambitious and talented artist intertwines the rational language of mathematics with the ephemeral and fragile nature of human relationships, producing a body of work that is as intellectually provocative as it is emotionally resonant. Her creations stand as rare confluences of art, science, and personal philosophy, carved from her unique background as a mathematician, artist, and champion triathlete."
🗓️ January 23rd, 2025 — early evening at Times Square, New York
With the cooperation of the PLOGIX online gallery, paintings In Via (2021) and Numeri Nexum (2020) have been exhibited on a digital screen at Times Square.
BIO
Alexandra Dyalee (née Zavadská) is a Slovak athlete, mathematician, and artist whose work connects the fields of
sport, science, and art. A seven-time national champion in middle-distance running, she is currently pursuing a comeback to competitive
athletics while serving as a neurodivergent redactor for the television talk show A Talks on TV JOJ. In addition to her athletic and media work, she
has exhibited her artwork internationally and is recognized for her advocacy of neurodiversity and mental health.
I’ve always seen competition as something exciting and deeply stimulating—in the best sense of the word. Over the years, I’ve taken part in many, many events…
And I’m still eager for new challenges to come!
Let me walk you through them, category by category.
SCIENCE
I. Stage Diploma on a research project The Star-Spangled Path of Circular (not published yet), 2019, Russian Academy of Sciences
Nomination list for a panel conference Vernadsky National Contest held in Moscow, 2018, AMAVET
Per aspera ad astra (lat.) comity, 2019, Russian Academy of Sciences
Regional bronze medalist in Mathematical Olympiad A, 2018, SKMO (REG)
Regional winner of Festival of Science and Technics (diploma, category Mathematics), 2018, UNIZA
Progressed to the national round of Secondary Research Work in category Mathematics and Physics
Winner of the Festival of Science and Technics (diploma, category Mathematics), 2018, AMAVET
Certificate of attending conference Cognition and Artificial Life 2024
ART
Awarded with International Prize MICHELANGELO, the Genius of Italy
Awarded with International Prize PEGASUS for the Arts
Certificate of Artistic Merit acquired within the Luxembourg Art Prize, 2021, The Pinacothèque Museum
Certificate of Artistic Achievement acquired within the Luxembourg Art Prize, 2023, The Pinacothèque Museum
Invited to the academic trade Women Leaders of the Digital Age – Incubator for Ideas (issued by nomination), 2023, British Embassy Bratislava
Masterful Mind Certificate awarded within Artist of the Year Award, 2025, Circle Foundation for the Arts
TRIATHLON AND ATHLETICS
Sport competitions have a uniquely ♥ special ♥ place in my heart.
Over the years, they haven’t just shaped my physical abilities — they’ve taught me a great deal about life, perseverance, and identity.
Here are my very favourite personal bests:
PBs: 3000m – 10:01 | 1500m – 4:35
And here’s a selection of highlights from my career:
• I became an 8× National Champion in junior categories, running the 1500m, 3000m, and cross-country.
• Representing my university on the world stage, I earned silver and bronze medals in the 3000m at the World Inter-University Championships.
• I competed four times at the European Championships, in both cross-country and aquathlon — electrifying experiences that challenged and shaped me.
• Across disciplines, I’ve stood on the National Championships podium 19 times, from track distances (1500m–10,000m) to triathlon and aquathlon.
• In 2017, I proudly brought home a Triathlon Bronze and Aquathlon Silver from the National Cup series, still as a junior.
Even though performance sports can make us feel unstoppable, the truth is — our bodies are fragile at peak intensity. In 2019, I was forced to pause everything. I fell into a deep, endogenic depression, accompanied by panic attacks — and for a while, I had no choice but to step away.
The thing is, when your brain runs low on serotonin, it doesn’t just affect your mind. It disrupts your whole body — your sleep, appetite, energy levels, resilience, and even your ability to recover physically. That period tested me to the core – and in no way only as an athlete.
Since 2024, I’ve been doing everything I can to get back on track.
And after all it took, I’ll say this openly: A comeback is mentally far harder than competing ever was.
But I believe —
And I'll see you then at the championships.
HIGHLIGHTS GALLERY
MY STORY
My name is Alexandra Dyalee. I am a Slovak athlete, artist, mathematician, and neurodivergent woman reclaiming her place in the world — after soaring, crashing, and rising again.
RUNNING: FROM GLORY TO SILENCE — AND BACK TO IT
EXPERIENCE = 0%, POWER OF HEART = 100%
I was 16 when I first wore the Slovak national kit. I had no idea how much pain and beauty the years ahead would carry.
My passion for running and triathlon began when I was 14 years old. I thought it might already be too late to start an
athletic career — but the love I felt was stronger than my fear. When I first stood on the starting block at a school
league race, I literally couldn't swim but felt something just so familiar in the act of actually competing. I became
obsessed.
Still, it took me some time to find the right discipline. Even though I won a medal in that league just a year later,
while still actually learning to swim properly, I didn’t feel I had a real shot at becoming a swimmer. In fact,
I wasn’t even offered a spot in a swimming club because my performances weren’t fast enough. But that rejection turned
out to be a perfect redirection.
I started to wonder whether I would be able to finish a triathlon. And when my stubborn personality combined with an
existential responsibility to find an answer to that question of a challenge, on May 1st, 2015, I began working with
coach Tomáš Jurkovič, who remained to be my coach and one of the best friends up to today. By August of that year, I had completed
my first sprint triathlon, where I placed 5th in the U18 group – it actually was a race of the National Cup series.
In the next month, remaining very motivated and passionate, I did another "experiment" – I ran a half-marathon, still
as a 15-year-old with zero experience, in 1:40.
And that was the moment when my journey as a runner truly began.
I WON MY FIRST NATIONALS
I got spotted by Milan Slivka, a coach from MKŠS AK KNM, who had worked with several national representatives. As we started
working together, a teammate began persuading me that I should definitely go to the national championships — that I would
actually win it. I was skeptical, yet very excited. I knew nothing about how strong the top girls in the country were and
felt like it would have to be a miracle for someone who had started with that very sport just a year ago to win. But deep inside,
it was my dream. I wanted to win it, despite still being a no-name kid.
Well, I got selected for the nationals without even
being asked. The fact is that the expectations in this team were high, and the work we did was real. I don't think I had been
fully aware of the fact I was doing it on a peak performance level already at that time, and I guess it was one of the core
deficits that led me to a severe crash afterwards — the zero of mental care. Anyway, I showed up at the U18 championships at 3000m, and —
I won it.
AND SUDDENLY, I WAS ON THE TEAM...
For a while, I couldn’t believe it. I felt like — and don’t get me wrong — a rising superstar. But just as I started to
process that I had become a national champion, the actual rollercoaster began. Running races were happening nearly every
weekend, yet at the same time, I was still deeply involved in triathlon. I literally began to live on the road, moving
from event to event.
In November 2016, I was at a triathlon training camp in Liptovský Ján when I took a train to Šamorín — heading to the
x-bionic® sphere to compete in my first cross-country nationals. In the U18 category, there were around forty girls on the
starting line. I already knew most of them, and I had a pretty good sense of what position I needed to hold in order to
make it to the victory.
And that day, I earned my second national title.
I apparently seemed stronger than even the U20 champions in the eyes of the national team coaches, so I was invited to a
qualification meet for the European Championships in Chia — to compare our performances directly with the older age group.
On that day, I left my lungs, my legs, and quite literally, my soul on the course. And it was totally worth it — I finished third,
making me the youngest member of the national team.
A month later, I received my first national team kit, and we were flying to Sardinia.
A DECISION
In Europe, I only realised how great my reserves were.
Speed of the girls felt surreal to me. I saw it black on white that not
only talent, but years of effective specialized hard work are required in order to succeed in the world. And my performance wasn't
bad — in fact, I think I never ran faster than on these Europeans. But for the sake of ranking visible numbers, far more was
supposed to be done. So I left my triathlon team, kept travelling for specialized trainings to the town nearby, ran 100km weekly,
got weekly physiotherapy sessions, attended regular testings,... and the fruits came.
SWEET HEIGHTS
It was in the Elán athletic hall — demolished just a few years later — where I came to the call room absolutely confident. I knew
I was in shape to run the 3000m around 10:00. I was looking forward to the show starting, sitting upright and listening
to Coldplay’s Something Just Like This. I felt... so ready to enter a great season.
Cooperating with Katarína Beľová, we finished in 10:01 — I was less than a second behind Katka, who won the race.
I felt as if that race was an experience of getting to fly. I kept myself thoroughly focused on every lap, re-feeling the
I've got this... experience seeing every other 200m run in 40 seconds.
I have had only a few moments in my career with this kind of absolute flow. Winning a week later at the junior championships in the 1500m
as well, we decided to make the upcoming outdoor season extraordinary — but unfortunately, the thoughtfulness part seemed to be excluded.
FIRST CRASH: INFLAMMED CALF
I made a mistake I still struggle to forgive my younger self for. In fact, a cascade of them.
About a month after the indoor season, I started to feel a tender pain deep in my left calf. I was under control — regular physiotherapy,
my coach checking on me almost every day. But the location of the injury made it hard to notice. And I didn’t confess it. I still remember
the feeling: I could run through the pain, so I did.
Every time I thought of telling my coach, I froze — paralysed by the image of ending an extraordinary project before it truly began.
Taking a step back, which in general is not a big deal, but at that moment it was. For the first time in my life, I had an anaerobic
threshold at 3’47/km and a VO₂max of 63 as a junior woman. It was the kind of shape where sub-10 in the 3000m and sub-37 in the 10km
weren’t dreams, but realistic numbers.
So I ran through the pain, silently, for two months. I was still hitting 500m intervals in 1:30 in training — until one day before
the first qualification meeting for the World Championships, I couldn’t walk. Tampere 2018. My coach called a physiotherapist to
the stadium, and that’s when I finally admitted I’d been having “some pain” for quite some time.
I felt ashamed. Ashamed of what I had done to my own season. The quick fix didn’t help — how could it? The diagnosis wasn't anything
mild: inflammation spreading through the entire lower left leg, from the Achilles to the knee ligaments, caused by a torn muscle in the middle.
Doctors only kept asking me how I had managed to run with that for so long. ...well, yes, it hurt like hell. At the worst point, the cramps
were so brutal I wished for dissociating from that leg.
Yet an even deeper pain was knowing I would not make it to Tampere to show what I
had trained for. And I never did, in fact.
One bitter truth from that world of peak performance sports is that my coach at the time wanted me to take some painkillers and keep
running anyway. He kept handing me pills — I never even knew what they were. My body was screaming no, but neither I at first nor later
my coach wanted to listen. The cost was heavy. At one point, under medical orders, I was taking 24 Wobenzym tablets daily, and still my
physical and neural systems refused to come back in time.
We shut it off.
SECOND CRASH: COLLAPSED ON HYPOXIA
I haven't done any training at all for a month. Only then did my doctors allow me to start training again, albeit very gradually, to see how my
leg would react. But doing it slowly for me at that time? No way. It was no longer my decision though. I got stuck in a cycle of pressure —
suddenly, alongside the
injury, I realised that I am constantly being told that I am somehow 'too big' for an athlete to be. I lost weight, but it didn't do me any good.
For my VO₂max, maybe. For a little while. But for my health? It was a no-go area. I felt like I was slowly losing my ability to take control
of my own career. I needed a break and perhaps also a psychologist.
Approximately two and a half months after I started training again following that injury — while still experiencing some pain in my calf — I attended
a training camp for national representatives at high altitude. The idea is to adapt to training with less oxygen (your haemoglobin saturation
increases), so that when you return to normal oxygen levels, your performance improves.
I collapsed on day 10. In fact, it was no surprise to me. Hypoxia was just the last piece of the puzzle that made it all crash. I don't think I
was significantly overtrained or unable to handle the altitude training. But there was a problem that I was anxious 24 hours a day. I couldn't calm my nervous system down,
and I couldn't help that anxiety in any way. Sharing a room with four other girls didn't help either. For some reason, when people were nearby — literally
anyone, even close friends — I felt like I had to prove something and hide something else at the same time. So it was no surprise when, at one
point, my body said 'no' — and it was a very harsh kind of 'no'.
My roommate took me to the nearest hospital since I was unable to stand and my condition wasn't improving. The doctor told me that the diagnosis
was actually — nothing.They just said I had some severe autoimmune reaction. I also had an inflamed stomach, but there was no virus
present. As a contemporary neuroscience student, I wouldn't have big difficulty in setting out the problem: my nervous system simply capitulated.
The chronic overactivation of HPA axis and cytokines invasion...
I needed treatment. But nobody knew that at the time. The science itself needed to advance. After a week on the hospital bed, I was being sent
home, and my coach couldn't wait to get me back into training. But this really was not what my body wanted.
VICTORY IN ANDORF
Approximately a month before the training camp, I represented Slovakia at a WCAT brozne meeting in Nové Město nad Metují, Czechia, in the 1500m event.
I finished fifth with a time of 4:35, beating the only Slovak woman ahead of me in the national rankings — Katka Beľová.
Crossing the finish line, I was asked to wait in the corridor, as I was told there was somebody who wanted to talk to me.
It was an exciting moment. My first thought was whether that wasn't about to be a doping control, but it turned out to be
a much nicer surprise. I was offered an invitation to another meeting in Austria, currently labeled as WCAT Bronze,
Laufmeeting Andorf.
Hell of a thing?!
We didn't think twice.
Unfortunately, before Andorf, I wasn't feeling really well. I couldn't keep my energy at a manageable level — I was in constant decline, feeling
weak and nauseous. As an 18-year-old however, I probably didn't have sufficient self-awareness or experience to say aloud I needed to stop.
The chronic fatigue showed up in Andorf — the time we had trained for should have been around 9:45 for 3000m.
I went almost 30 seconds slower, yet I won the women's category, ahead of two German girls.
I think that the adrenaline and shape
carried me through the race, but afterwards...
both my physical and mental health began to go brutally downhill.
EUROPEANS ARE COMING, BUT DEPRESSION IS ON
Having run 3000m in 10:01 as a junior woman, I had satisfied the entry standard for the European Championships in cross-country,
TILBURG 2018. Still, approximately a month before we were flying, I had to prove my performance at Nationals. I won with a solo run.
Yet deep down I felt something was wrong. I wasn’t truly happy receiving that gold medal. I didn’t feel like competing at the Europeans.
I didn’t even feel well during my run; the only thing I had was the countless kilometers in my legs.
At night I couldn’t sleep, plagued by sudden attacks of anxiety, questioning whether I could even make it to the next day. By day, I had
bursts of crying—sometimes lasting as long as seven hours. I looked like a ghost of myself and was constantly zoned out, unable to be
productive anywhere in life.
Training—I simply couldn’t. Deep down, I longed more than anything to be consistent and to grow athletically, but I no longer had the
energy to make it through a normal day without chronic fatigue and nausea. Running had become forced. And yes, I qualified for the
Europeans. I didn’t protest going; I just couldn’t bring myself to admit I wasn’t well, because performance felt like the only thing
left holding me together.
🎤 TED-style talk on neurodiversity What if being different could be your greatest strength?
(Language: Slovak)
PANEL DISCUSSIONS (SK)
Women on the Autism Spectrum
I was invited to speak as a panelist on the occasion of World Autism Awareness Day, at an event organized by Modrá hliadka. Alongside two other women diagnosed with Asperger’s, we shared personal insights into what it means to navigate life as a masking woman on the spectrum, how we relate to the concept of motherhood, or whether it truly serves us to group all autism-related conditions under a single umbrella.
Painting and the Beauty of Mathematics
As a part of the Comenius University family in Bratislava, I was invited to speak in a panel discussion on the interconnection of art and mathematics, held on the occasion of the POHODA Festival in 2024. I excitedly shared the idea that both fields do serve as languages — one being emotionally-cognitive (art), and the other universal (mathematics).
On the extraordinary occasion of the opening of the new inclusive bookstore Prímerie in the vibrant cultural space of Nová Cvernovka in Bratislava, I was invited to join a panel discussion on the essence of neurodiversity, alongside Vera Štabrila and Aneta Rabadová, moderated by Martin Staňo.
Neurodiversity and Career
In early spring 2024, I was invited to take part in a thoughtful panel discussion hosted by UNION, alongside Hana Kamenistá and moderated by Oli Džupi, on how to approach neurodiversity in highly competitive career fields — with the aim of preventing burnout while still allowing individuals to reach their full potential.
ART EXHIBITIONS
Details Galéria Starý Avion, Bratislava, Slovakia – 2025 (solo exhibition)
LONDON CONTEMPORARY (14th ed.) ELEMENTS Contemporary Art Space, London, United Kingdom – 2024 (group exhibition)
The way of seeing the world PAKS Gallery, Vienna, Austria – 2024 (group exhibition)
SUPERNATURAL 2024 ELEMENTS Contemporary Art Space, London, United Kingdom – 2024 (group exhibition)
ECOmenius at Pohoda
Exhibition held as a part of Pohoda Festival, Trenčín, Slovakia – 2024 (solo)
Symbioses. Fine and modern PAKS Gallery, Heidenreichstein, Austria – 2024 (group exhibition)
Times Square showcase PLOGIX Gallery, New York, USA – 2024 (group exhibition)
So far yet so close. Art that unites PAKS Gallery, Munich, Germany – 2024 (group exhibition)
Numeri Nexum in lecture hall A
Permanent installation of Numeri Nexum at Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics of Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia – 2023 (solo)
AUTISTS-ARTISTS ARTFORUM, Bratislava, Slovakia – 2023 (group exhibition)
2025 – Cognition and Artificial Life, Piešťany Oral presentation: Diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome in Socially High-Functioning Individuals Based on Cognitive Load
2024 – MATFYZ Connections, Bratislava Poster talk: Invisible Spectrum Quotient: Moving Toward the Unfolding of Socially High-Functioning Asperger Syndrome
2024 – MEi:CogSci Conference, Bratislava Poster talk: Invisible Spectrum Quotient: Moving Toward the Unfolding of Socially High-Functioning Asperger Syndrome
2024 – Cognition and Artificial Life, Olomouc Oral presentation: Theory of Mind – Varying Substrates of Social Cognition
2023 – Students' Science Conference of FMPI CU, Bratislava Oral presentation: Fractal Dimension of the Fine Art Pieces
2019 – Vernadsky National Contest, Moscow Poster talk: The Star-Spangled Path of Circular
2018 – Festival of Science and Technology, Bratislava Poster talk: The Star-Spangled Path of Circular (Číslo π vo hviezdach)
PODCASTS (SK)
TV / MEDIA APPEARANCES
Section is under construction.
CONTACT
Bratislava, Slovakia
Phone: +421 948 688 311
Email:
alexandra.dyalee@mensa.sk
– 10:01 | 1500m 
