Yelena Vyalbe biography
Yelena Vyalbe, (born April 20, 1968, Magadan, Russia, U.S.S.R.), Russian cross-country skier who excelled at each distance in worldwide competitors within the Nineties however did not seize a person gold medal on the Winter Olympics.
Vyalbe was born in far northeastern Siberia, and he or she demonstrated a flair for snowboarding at an early age. She captured her first gold medal in worldwide competitors on the junior championships in 1987. Over the course of the following decade, she received a complete of six Olympic medals, 12 world championship medals, 4 World Cup total titles, and 35 World Cup particular person occasions. She turned in probably the most dominant efficiency of her profession on the Nordic world championships at Trondheim, Norway, in March 1997. She received gold medals in her first two races, the 10-km and 15-km occasions, after which completed second within the 5-km race to teammate Lyubov Yegorova. Later, nevertheless, after Yegorova examined constructive for performance-enhancing medication and was stripped of her title, Vyalbe was named the winner of the race and obtained a 3rd gold medal. In a transfer not usually seen in sports activities, Vyalbe then stepped ahead because the chief of the Russian workforce and, talking in German, addressed the group simply earlier than her workforce competed within the 4 × 5-km relay, assuring these in attendance that Yegorova had acted alone. Vyalbe anchored the Russian workforce because it triumphed within the relay. In the 30-km race two days later, she led from begin to end, beating Stefania Belmondo of Italy by 28.3 seconds to take an unprecedented fifth gold medal and wrap up her fifth World Cup crown. By the top of the 1996–97 season, Vyalbe had received 44 World Cup races in her profession, a report for each women and men.
It appeared that the one problem left for Vyalbe was the 1998 Winter Olympics at Nagano, Japan. She had competed in two earlier Winter Games. At Albertville, France, in 1992, she received a gold medal as a member of the Unified Team’s 4 × 5-km relay squad and gained bronze medals within the 5-km classical, the mixed pursuit, the 15-km classical, and the 30-km freestyle. Vyalbe’s efficiency marked the primary time within the historical past of the Winter Games {that a} lady collected 4 bronze medals. At Lillehammer, Norway, in 1994, she received one other gold medal as a member of the relay workforce, however she did not medal in any of the person occasions. Not solely did particular person Olympic gold proceed to elude her at Nagano, however she did not medal in any of her particular person occasions. Vyalbe did assist the Russian relay workforce defend its Olympic title and picked up her third Olympic workforce gold medal.
After retiring from aggressive snowboarding after the 1998 Games, she served as vp (2004–06) and president (2010– ) of Russia’s Cross Country Ski Federation and was additionally the pinnacle coach of the Russian Olympic cross-country workforce that received a formidable seven medals on the 2006 Winter Games in Turin, Italy. She additionally held that submit on the 2014 Games in Sochi, Russia. There Russians captured 5 cross-country medals however had been later stripped of three due to doping. The disqualifications got here amid an investigation into allegations of a Russian state-sponsored doping program, and several other of the nation’s cross-country skiers subsequently obtained lifetime bans. Vyalbe, nevertheless, denied any wrongdoing by the athletes. Because of the widespread doping by Russian athletes, the nation was banned from the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in P’yŏngch’ang, South Korea. However, choose people had been allowed to compete within the Games beneath the designation “Olympic Athletes from Russia,” and people athletes collected eight cross-country snowboarding medals (three silvers and 5 bronzes) in P’yŏngch’ang.