Oleksandra Mykolaivna Kononova ( uk, Олександра Миколаївна Кононова, born 27 February 1991) is a

Ukrainian Ukrainian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Ukraine * Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe * Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine * So ...

Paralympic skier. She won three medals at the 2010 Paralympics and became the 2010 Ukrainian sports personality of the year.

Personal life

Kononova was born in

Brovary Brovary ( uk, Бровари, , yi, בראָוואַר, Brovar) is a city in Kyiv Oblast (Region) in northern Ukraine, an eastern suburb of the country's capital, Kyiv. It is the administrative centre of Brovary Raion (district). Brovary h ...

in 1991. She had a condition when she was a young child that meant that her right arm did not develop as well as her other arm. Kononova was an orphan brought up by her grandmother. When she was ten she met some youths who were using in-line roller skates. Kononova came from a poor background, she was bullied due to her disability and remembered being unhappy. She found out that the people she had met in the park were not roller skaters but a team training using skates for

cross-country skiing Cross-country skiing is a form of skiing where skiers rely on their own locomotion to move across snow-covered terrain, rather than using ski lifts or other forms of assistance. Cross-country skiing is widely practiced as a sport and recreation ...

. She decided to take up the sport.

Career

Training on skates during the spring and summer seasons she found that her disability did not effect her ability to succeed at skiing and she was achieving national positions by the time she was eighteen. Her first trainer was Anatoliy Zadvineyev.The Faces of Ukraine
Ukrainian week, December 2010, retrieved 14 February 2014 When Kononova was nineteen she was chosen to travel from her home in

Kyiv Oblast Kyiv Oblast ( uk, Ки́ївська о́бласть, translit=Kyïvska oblast), also called Kyivshchyna ( uk, Ки́ївщина), is an oblast (province) in central and northern Ukraine. It surrounds, but does not include, the city of Kyiv, w ...

to represent her country at the paralympics in Canada. She was part of a Ukrainian team who had been fourth at the last paralympics and who hoped to better their position. Kononova won a gold medal for the Ukraine in the standing biathlon at the Paralympic games in Vancouver in 2010. She competed at the games as the reigning world champion. Kononova won the best debut at the games adding to the nineteen medals that the Ukraine took in Vancouver. She won three gold medals and a silver medal at the 2010 Paralympics and became the 2010 Ukrainian sports personality of the year. She won significant prize money from the Ukrainian government and was credited with assisting in changing the Ukrainian's attitudes to disability in general. Kononova competed at the IPC Nordic Biathlon World Cup in

Vuokatti Vuokatti is an urban area that is a physically separate part of the municipality of Sotkamo, Finland. It is home to more than 6,000 inhabitants, making it the second most populous urban area in the region of Kainuu, after the main urban area of ...

in Finland in 2014. On the final day of the World Cup she was the only non-Russian to claim a gold medal.Competition concludes in Vuokatti with yet more success for Russian skiers
12 January 2014, Gary Anderson, retrieved 14 February 2014 She was in the Ukrainian biathlon team at the Sochi 2014 Paralympic Winter Games. She won the gold medal in the women's 6km standing biathlon event at the

2021 World Para Snow Sports Championships The 2021 World Para Snow Sports Championships was an international disability sport competition held in Lillehammer, Norway from 8 to 23 January 2022. It was the inaugural edition of the World Para Snow Sports Championships with para-alpine skiin ...

held in Lillehammer, Norway. She also won the bronze medal in the women's 10km standing biathlon event.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kononova, Oleksandra 1991 births Living people Ukrainian female biathletes Paralympic gold medalists for Ukraine Paralympic silver medalists for Ukraine Paralympic cross-country skiers of Ukraine Paralympic biathletes of Ukraine Cross-country skiers at the 2010 Winter Paralympics Cross-country skiers at the 2022 Winter Paralympics Paralympic medalists in cross-country skiing Paralympic medalists in biathlon Biathletes at the 2010 Winter Paralympics Biathletes at the 2014 Winter Paralympics Biathletes at the 2022 Winter Paralympics Medalists at the 2010 Winter Paralympics Medalists at the 2014 Winter Paralympics Medalists at the 2022 Winter Paralympics People from Brovary Sportspeople from Kyiv Oblast 20th-century Ukrainian women 21st-century Ukrainian women