Raisa Petrovna Smetanina - the pride of skiing

Raisa Petrovna Smetanina is a Soviet skier, five-time Olympic champion. Repeated champion of the USSR and the world. I won more than 20 medals at different distances. In 1993 in Paris she was awarded the Fair Play award for a worthy example of a sports career.

Childhood

Raisa Petrovna Smetanina (photo below) was born in the village of Mokhcha (Komi ASSR) in 1952. Parents of the future champion were hereditary reindeer herders.

The girl soon adapted to that life and with all her heart she loved the tundra, her air, vast spaces, silence, blue lakes ... Here she gained independence, calmness, the ability to get rid of loneliness - the eternal companion of a skier in the fight for distance.

The Smetanin family numbered five brothers: Ivan, Ilya, Gennady, Fedor, Vladimir - and two sisters: Olya and Paradise. From early childhood they were taught to ski, since in the tundra this was the main means of transportation. Skis were inherited, and the time had come when they fell into the hands of Raisa.

The northern region lived an active sport life. Two directors of local schools were great fans of skiing and regularly organized competitions for children, and also filmed films about it. On weekends, they constantly visited each other and exchanged advice, looking for new training methods. With their enthusiasm they managed to ignite not only pupils of schools, but also children from all over the region.

The first competitions and studies

For the first time Raisa won in Pechora at the youth championship of the republic. The girl took the second place. After school Smetanin Raisa Petrovna moved to Syktyvkar for admission to the pedagogical college. Here she met her first coach - Herman Kharitonov - and began to seriously engage in skis. After graduating from the technical school in 1970, Raisa was taken to the sporting society "Harvest" as a member of the national team.

Carier start

In 1971, Raisa Petrovna Smetanina was included as a coach of the USSR national team in the list of applicants for participation in the Olympics.

The hardest for the athlete was 1972, when she, in order to learn all the tricks of skiing, worked on wear and tear. Her coach was Viktor Ivanov, and the girl was guarded by Galina Kulakova. Thanks to this, Raisa showed good results, taking third place at the national championship (5 and 10 km.).

First gold

1974 brought the first gold to the sportswoman. Raisa Petrovna Smetanina won him in the team relay race at the World Championships in Falun. At the Olympics in Innsbruck, the Soviet team had a nuisance. Galina Kulakova was unable to lead the team for health reasons. Her place was taken by Smetanina.

Five kilometers distance, the young skier was brilliant, but lost gold Helena Tekalo, losing her just a second. Raisa worked with the coach on the mistakes and developed a strategy for the next race. This brought fruit, and Smetanina managed to get around all the rivals at a ten-kilometer distance. The result of the Olympics is two gold and one silver medal.

New victories

At the 1980 Olympics Smetanina Raisa Petrovna entered the history of skiing as the first racer who twice won the pedestal in individual competitions. At the 1982 World Cup, the athlete won a gold medal at a distance of 20 kilometers, becoming the only Soviet skier to enter the top six.

The fourteenth Olympic Games were also crowned with success for Raisa. She won two silver medals (10 and 20 km.). And the 1985 World Cup brought gold (relay race) to its treasury.

The 1988 Olympics can also be considered successful. In the ten-kilometer race, Raisa won silver, and twenty kilometers received bronze. Then the pedestal managed to occupy our other skiers as well - Reztsova and Tikhonova.

Transfer of experience

Realizing that the sports career will one day end, Raisa Petrovna Smetanina took care of the young athletes from the team. She started to educate a new generation of Russian skiers. Raisa Petrovna on a personal example showed the girls with what perseverance and diligence it is necessary to achieve the set goals. The illustrious skier constantly asked them a high tempo, both in training and in competitions.

The Last Victory

In 1992, Smetanina Raisa Petrovna, whose biography was presented in this article, went to the Winter Olympics in Albertville. A forty-year-old athlete appeared on the ski track under the second number. At ten-kilometer distance she took fourth place, and in the relay she won gold.

This was the last medal in the career of Raisa Petrovna. It became a symbolic and expensive reward. Now the great racer could retire and pass the baton to young and promising skiers. At that time they were Lazutin, Vialbe and Egorova, who fled with Raisa Petrovna at the Olympics. In their interviews, the girls have always said that Smetanina has made a huge contribution to skiing, and the numerous victories of the team - it's only her merit.

For the sports achievements of Raisa Petrovna, the leadership of the Komi republic gave her a good house.