Raisa Petrovna Smetanina - Soviet skier,five-time Olympic champion. Repeated champion of the USSR and the world. She won more than 20 medals at various distances. In 1993, she was awarded the Fair Play Award in Paris for a worthy example of a sports career.
Childhood
Raisa Petrovna Smetanina (see photo below) was born in the village of Mokhcha (Komi ASSR) in 1952. The parents of the future champion were hereditary reindeer herders.
The girl early adapted to that life and allmy heart fell in love with the tundra, its air, vast spaces, silence, blue lakes ... Here she gained independence, calm, the ability to get rid of loneliness - the eternal companion of the skier in the fight for distance.
The Smetanins family consisted of five brothers:Ivana, Ilya, Gennady, Fyodor, Vladimir - and two sisters: Olya and Raya. From early childhood they were taught to ski, as in the tundra it was the main means of transportation. The skis were inherited, and the time came when they fell into the hands of Raisa.
The northern edge lived an active sports life.Two directors of local schools were great lovers of skiing and regularly organized competitions for children, and also made films about it. Over the weekend, they constantly visited each other and exchanged tips, looking for new training methods. With their enthusiasm, they succeeded in igniting not only pupils of schools, but also children from the whole district.
The first competition and study
For the first time, Raisa won in Pechora in a youthfulRepublic Championship. The girl took second place. After school, Smetanina Raisa Petrovna moved to Syktyvkar to enter the pedagogical college. Here she met her first coach, Herman Kharitonov, and began to seriously engage in skiing. After graduating from college in 1970, Raisa was hired into the sports society "Harvest" as a member of the national team.
Carier start
In 1971, Raisa Petrovna Smetanina was included by the coach of the USSR national team in the list of candidates for participation in the Olympics.
The most difficult for an athlete was 1972,when she, in order to learn all the tricks of skiing, worked hard. Her coach was Viktor Ivanov, and Galina Kulakova took care of the girl. Thanks to this, Raisa showed good results, taking third places in the national championship (5 and 10 km.).
First gold
1974 brought the first gold athlete.Raisa Petrovna Smetanina won it in the team relay at the World Championships in Falun. At the Olympics in Innsbruck, the Soviet team had trouble. Galina Kulakova could not lead the team for health reasons. Her place was taken by Smetanin.
Five-kilometer distance young skier passedbrilliantly, but Helena Tekalo lost gold, losing only a second to her. Raisa worked with the coach on the bugs and developed a strategy for the next race. This bore fruit, and Smetanina managed to bypass all rivals in the ten-kilometer distance. The result of the Olympiad is two gold and one silver medal.
New wins
At the 1980 Olympics Smetanina Raisa Petrovnaentered the history of skiing as the first racer who twice conquered the pedestal in individual competitions. At the 1982 World Championships, the athlete won the gold medal over a distance of 20 kilometers, becoming the only Soviet skier to be in the top six.
The fourteenth Olympic Games were also a success for Raisa. She won two silver medals (10 and 20 km.). And the world championship of 1985 brought gold (the relay) to her piggy bank.
The 1988 Olympics can also be considered successful.In the ten-kilometer race, Raisa won silver, and for twenty kilometers she received bronze. Then the pedestal managed to take and our other skiers - Reztsova and Tikhonova.
Transfer of experience
Realizing that sports career somedayis over, Raisa Petrovna Smetanina took care of the young athletes from the team. She took up the upbringing of a new generation of Russian skiers. Raisa Petrovna on a personal example showed the girls, with what persistence and diligence it is necessary to achieve their goals. The famous skier constantly asked them a high pace, both in training and in competitions.
Last win
In 1992, Smetanina Raisa Petrovna, biographywhich was presented in this article, went to the Winter Olympics in Albertville. The forty-year-old athlete appeared on the ski track under the second number. At the ten-kilometer distance, she took fourth place, and won gold in the relay.
This was the last medal in the career of RaisaPetrovna. She became a symbolic and expensive reward. Now the great racer could retire and pass the baton to young and promising skiers. At that time it was Lazutina, Vyalbe and Yegorova, who ran with Raisa Petrovna at the Olympics. In their interviews, the girls have always said that Smetanina made a huge contribution to skiing, and the numerous victories of the national team are exclusively her merit.
For the sporting achievements of Raisa Petrovna, the leadership of the Komi Republic presented her a good house.
