Svetlana GLADISHEVA

A specialist in the high speed events, Svetlana Gladysheva became Junior World Champion in the downhill in 1990, while taking silver in Super-G. She showed off her talents among the seniors the following season, taking a downhill bronze at the 1991 World Championships. Despite these successes, Gladysheva only rarely placed on the podium at World Cups, placing third in downhill at Lake Louise in March 1991 and at Schruns in January 1992. Competing with start number 35, she won a completely unexpected silver medal at the Lillehammer Olympics in the Super-G. This was only the second alpine skiing medal won by a Russian skier, Yevgeniya Kabina-Sidorova winning the first in 1956. Gladysheva competed until after the 1998 Olympics. Her only major success after her Olympic medal was her only World Cup win, which came in the December 1996 downhill in Vail. Since 2010, she has served as president of the Russian Alpine Skiing and Snowboarding Federation.