Career
This article is about the wrestler. Olga Vladimirovna Smirnova (Russian: Ольга Владимировна Смирнова. Born May 11, 1979 in Novocheboksarsk, Russian SFSR) is an amateur Russian-born Kazakhstani freestyle wrestler, who played for the women"s lightweight category.
She is a two-time Olympian, a three-time medalist at the European Senior Championships, and a gold medalist for the 50 kg class at the 1996 World Wrestling Championships in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Smirnova also added a silver medal from the 2006 Asian Games in Doha, Qatar, and bronze from the 2007 World Wrestling Championships in Baku, Azerbaijan, representing her adopted nation Kazakhstan. Smirnova emerged as one of Russia"s most prominent female wrestlers in its sporting history.
She continued to build success by capturing a total of three gold medals for the 54 kg class at the World and European Junior Championships. In the early 2000s Smirnova returned to the senior division, and eventually dominated the 51 kg class twice at the European Championships, defeating Sweden"s Ida Hellström.
Smirnova became one of the first female wrestlers to mark their official debut at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens.
She placed third in the preliminary pool of the women"s 55 kg class, after losing out by a grand superiority (3–13) to Canada"s Tonya Verbeek, and consequently, by a fall (2–5) to United States. wrestler Tela O"Connell. Shortly after the Olympics, Smirnova moved to Kazakhstan, where she obtained a dual citizenship in order to compete internationally for wrestling. She defeated Belarus" Alena Filipava in the preliminary round, before losing out the quarterfinal match to China"s Xu Li, with a three-set technical score (0–1, 2–0, 2–1) and classification point score of 1–3.
Because her opponent advanced further into the final, Smirnova offered another shot for the bronze medal by entering the repechage bouts.
Unfortunately, she was defeated in the first round by Romania"s Ana Maria Pavăl, with a technical score of 4–9.