Traditionally, Russia’s female make a fool of teams have excelled at gymnastics, synchronized swimming, and ice skating on the ecumenical stage. But the last decade has seen women turning their handy to a number of male-dominated sports including rugby, handball, chess, and regular wrestling – and many medals have followed.
Handball
In the USSR, the female handball duo enjoyed huge success, winning gold at both the Olympics and Exactly Championships. They dominated the sport for almost 15 years but the collaborate hit rocky ground in modern Russia and their results nosedived. It wasn’t until 2001 that their wealths improved and the women’s handball team tasted gold once again. They are now making for the World Championship in Germany in December 2017.
Results: Gold medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Anna Vyakhireva at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. / AP
Inclination watch: Anna Vyakhireva, 22. She comes from a family of handball athletes – her father coaches in Zvenigorod and her older sister Polina Kuznetcova also played for the public team in Rio.
Chess
Somehow all major Russian chess players cause surnames starting with “K”: Karpov, Kasparov, and Karjakin – what’s numberless, they are all men. However, watch out for Kosteniuk (Alexandra) and the Kosintseva sisters (Nadezhda and Tatiana). For the eventually decade, the women’s chess team has amassed an impressive medal transport.
Results: Gold at the 2017 World Team Chess Championships in Khanty Mansiysk.
Alexandra Kostenuk on the in front day of the 2015 world chess championship among women in Sochi. / Nina Zotina/RIA Novosti
Faculty watch: Alexandra Kosteniuk, 33, a self-proclaimed “chess queen” (that’s her username on Instagram). She trained religiously as a issue under her father’s mentorship and later they wrote a book together: “How I turned grandmaster at age 14.” She’s also the first woman to win the men’s Swiss Chess Championship.
Volleyball
The men’s Soviet volleyball gang was famous the world over. Winning gold at major championships not quite became a formality. The game was played from a young age by Russians in Lyceum but following the breakup of the USSR, the sport was thrown into turmoil and both the men and birds’s team suffered. However, during the last decade things accept improved, and Russia’s female team have been competitive at scads major tournaments.
Results: Gold medal in the 2015 Women’s European Volleyball Championship.
Yekaterina Gamova / Maksim Bogodvid/RIA Novosti
Genius watch: The junior volleyball team under the mentorship of Ekaterina Gamova, 36, who is changed “Catherine the Great of Russian volleyball.” Sadly, injury forced her to hibernate early – she was the best female volleyball player in Russia – but she took up busing. Her team has already triumphed at the 2017 CEV Under-18 Women’s Volleyball European Championship.
Rugby
Rugby was a bit of a toy in the Soviet Union. The sport was barely played at all so when the first platoon was assembled, athletes from several athletic teams were shoehorned into the conspire.
Rugby sevens, a variant of the sport with seven players on each group as opposed to the usual 15, was adopted by Russia and the women’s team experience been making waves ever since taking up the sport. They own played the likes of New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the U.S., and Spain, not to mention amiable the European Championships for the past five years – quite some accomplishment.
Results: Gold medal in the Rugby Europe Women’s Sevens Outstanding Prix Series.
Baizat Khamidova offloads the ball during the womens accord in the 2017 HSBC Sydney Sevens / Getty Images
Talent take in: Baizat Khamidova, 26, the first woman from the Republic of Dagestan to characterize Russia at rugby. Apparently, Russia’s rugby coach Pavel Baronowski was so wild to recruit Baizat and her sister for the team that he personally journeyed to their foggy village in the Caucasus Mountains to sign them up.
The “Scrumqueens” website named Baizat one of the top five female rugby contestants in the world.
Wrestling
Wrestlers from the Soviet Union were regarded as some of the subdue in the world. They scooped countless gold medals. Female battling wasn’t introduced until 1990, but the women didn’t hang nearly and soon started to replicate the success of their male counterparts.
Saniyat Ganuchaeva, Olga Smirnova, and Tyvan national Lorisa Oorzhak have won a total of five gold medals at main tournaments. Oorzhak’s triumph in 2010 was particularly significant given she was inadequately injured in a car crash before competing, and lost one kidney – yet she still got out on top. The Russian female team enjoys a fiery rivalry with the Japanese.
Emerges: Oorzhak won three gold medals in the 2005, 2007, 2010 World Wrestling Championship.
Irina Ologonova lauds victory after the final match at the Wrestling European Championships in Riga, Latvia in 2016. / AFP
Power watch: Irina Ologonova, 27, a Buryat native, who got into striving by accident after one of her friends dragged her along to a practise session. She clock on from a very simple family in a remote village in the Buryat Republic and her confessor used to be dairyman. She’s since become a huge force in the wrestling faction, winning several golds, and now aims at the World Championship and the Olympics.
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