Natalya Vassilievna Smirnitskaya (russian: Наталья Васильевна Смирницкая-Дятлова; née Dyatlova; 8 September 1927 – 2004) was a
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...
track and field
Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping eve ...
athlete who competed in the
javelin throw
The javelin throw is a track and field event where the javelin, a spear about in length, is thrown. The javelin thrower gains momentum by running within a predetermined area. Javelin throwing is an event of both the men's decathlon and the wom ...
. She broke the
women's javelin throw world record twice in 1949, becoming the first Soviet woman to do so and the first woman to throw beyond fifty metres for the event.
Smirnitskaya was the gold medallist at the
1950 European Athletics Championships
The 4th European Athletics Championships were held from 23 August to 27 August 1950 in the Heysel Stadium of the Belgian capital Brussels. Contemporaneous reports on the event were given in the Glasgow Herald.
Men's results
Complete result ...
and also the
1949 World Festival of Youth and Students. She was a two-time national champion, winning in 1949 and 1950.
Career
Early life
Born in
Ordzhonikidze (now Vladikavkaz) and raised in
Pyatigorsk
Pyatigorsk (russian: Пятиго́рск; Circassian: Псыхуабэ, ''Psıxwabæ'') is a city in Stavropol Krai, Russia located on the Podkumok River, about from the town of Mineralnye Vody where there is an international airport and about ...
, at the age of fourteen she met
Viktor Alexeyev – a national champion in javelin throwing – who had been evacuated there due to
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
. After the end of the war, she later moved to
Leningrad
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
and began training with him. Smirnitskaya was the first of Alexeyev's charges to achieve international success and he went on to train many other athletes, including Olympic shot put champions
Galina Zybina and
Tamara Tyshkevich. She joined
Zenit
Zenit, meaning "zenith", may refer to:
Spaceflight and rocketry
* Zenit (rocket family), a Soviet family of space launch vehicles
* Zenit (satellite), a type of Soviet spy satellite
* Zenit sounding rocket, a Swiss rocket
Sports
* Zenit (sports ...
, the sports club associated with the Soviet arms industry.
[Смирницкая Наталья Васильевна]
Lesgaft. Retrieved on 2015-10-17.
Smirnitskaya established herself at national level in 1947, with a runner-up finish behind
Klavdiya Mayuchaya at the
Soviet Athletics Championships. She was again runner-up the following year, this time behind
Aleksandra Chudina. Her performances ranked her among the world's best of the period, with in 1947 placing her fourth globally and a best of moving her to third place for the season.
[Natalya Smirnitskaya]
Track and Field Brinkster. Retrieved on 2015-10-17.
International success
She rose to prominence in the 1949 season. She began by breaking the
women's javelin throw world record that July, achieving a distance of to add nearly a metre on to Austria's
Herma Bauma
Hermine "Herma" Bauma (23 January 1915 – 9 February 2003) was an Austrian athlete who competed mainly in the javelin. She also was famous for playing handball.
Bauma competed for Austria at the 1948 Summer Olympics held in London, Unite ...
former mark. This marked the first time that a Soviet woman had ever broken that record. A big improvement came in August, as Smirnitskaya threw the implement to a distance of , making her the first woman to officially throw beyond fifty metres (Mayuchaya had done so unofficially). Her efforts coincided with a period of Soviet success in the women's throws, as
Tatyana Sevryukova and
Nina Dumbadze had broken the shot put and discus world records the previous year – both being the first Soviets to have that honour.
[13th IAAF World Championships In Athletics: IAAF Statistics Handbook. Daegu 2011. (Part 5 of 5)]
. IAAF, pp. 702, 703. Retrieved on 2015-10-17.
Smirnitskaya won her first ever national title in the sport that year, throwing the spear .
[ An international title followed at the ]World Festival of Youth and Students
The World Festival of Youth and Students is an international event organized by the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY) and the International Union of Students after 1947. History
The festival has been held regularly since 1947 as an eve ...
, where she set a meet record of to win the gold medal some five metres ahead of runner-up Aleksandra Chudina. This started off a streak of Soviet success at the competition, as a Soviet woman was the winner at each edition until its dissolution in 1962.[World Student Games (UIE)]
GBR Athletics. Retrieved on 2015-10-17. She retained her national title in 1950 with a throw of – this was the second best performance in the world that year.[ The ]1950 European Athletics Championships
The 4th European Athletics Championships were held from 23 August to 27 August 1950 in the Heysel Stadium of the Belgian capital Brussels. Contemporaneous reports on the event were given in the Glasgow Herald.
Men's results
Complete result ...
was her first open class, top level competition and she demonstrated her position as the world's best thrower by winning with three metres to spare over minor medallists Herma Bauma and Galina Zybina. Her throw of was a championship record.
Decline and retirement
Smirtnitskaya did not retain her position at the top of the sport in the 1951. First she was defeated by Vera Nabokova at the Soviet Championships. She also lost her title to Nobokova at the World Festival of Youth and Students
The World Festival of Youth and Students is an international event organized by the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY) and the International Union of Students after 1947. History
The festival has been held regularly since 1947 as an eve ...
, finishing third with a comparatively poor performance of for the bronze medal (Zybina was silver medallist in a Soviet medal sweep).[ Smirnitskaya's season's best of was among the best throws of her career,][ but was short of Zybina's 1951 world leading mark of .Galina Zybina]
Track and Field Brinkster. Retrieved on 2015-10-17.
Smirnitskaya had a child in 1952 and did not reach the same levels of the sport after that point. After that year she did not throw beyond 50 metres or rank in the top ten globally. Following a best of in the 1955 season, she retired from javelin throwing.[ Her world record stood from 5 August 1949 until 5 February 1954, when fellow Soviet Nadezhda Konyayeva added an additional fifteen centimetres.][ She went on to attend the and was awarded the USSR Honored Master of Sports in 1957. She was an ]athletics
Athletics may refer to:
Sports
* Sport of athletics, a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking
** Track and field, a sub-category of the above sport
* Athletics (physical culture), competi ...
coach at the Zenit club from 1955 to 1965, then later in her life became a secondary school teacher at High School 161 in Leningrad (later Saint Petersburg).[
]
National titles
* Soviet Athletics Championships
**Javelin throw: 1949, 1950
International competitions
See also
*
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Smirnitskaya, Natalya
1927 births
2004 deaths
People from Pyatigorsk
Sportspeople from Vladikavkaz
Soviet female javelin throwers
Soviet sports coaches
European Athletics Championships medalists
World record setters in athletics (track and field)
Sportspeople from Stavropol Krai