Background
Svetlana Sleptsova was born in a sports family.
Svetlana Sleptsova was born in a sports family.
In 2009 she was part of the Gold medal winning Russian women"s relay team at the World Championships in Pyeongchang. At the age of ten, she started regular biathlon classes, when biathlon coach Alexander Korchak came to her school and invited her to engage in biathlon. In a chat of 17 January 2008 at Rasen-Antholz, Sleptsova recalls: "I started doing biathlon in third grade.
There was nothing else but biathlon in Khanty-Mansiysk at that time.
There was no alternative." Initially, the young athletes were shooting with air rifles, and the biathlon exercises were combined with ballet dancing, boxing, and karate. A few months later, she suffered a severe loss—the death of her father.
After two years, thanks to hard training under the sensitive guidance of an experienced coach, she advanced to one of the world"s best junior athletes, and did her World Cup debut at Pokljuka in 2007. Next, she finished the sprint at Oberhof, Germany as second, and repeated this result in the subsequent week at Ruhpolding.
Later, after the disqualification of Kaisa Varis (Finland), she was awarded the victory of this competition.
Sleptsova arrived at the 2008 World Championships in Östersund in good form, but an illness prevented her from demonstrating her maximum capability. She came up with similar results at the 2008 Russian Championships, winning three gold medals and the grand prize—a car. As of 2009, she has three world cup victories, excluding the one Varis retrieved after being cleared to compete again after IBU had broken test correction process.
All results are sourced from the International Biathlon Union.
Olympic Games
1 medal (1 gold)
*The mixed relay was added as an event in 2014. World Championships
2 medals (1 gold, 1 bronze)
*During Olympic seasons competitions are only held for those events not included in the Olympic program
Junior/Youth World Championships
6 medals (3 gold, 1 silver, 2 bronze)
Individual podiums
5 victories – (3 Sp, 2 Pu)
16 podiums – (7 Sp, 6 Pu, 2 Mississippi, 1 In)
Shooting
* Results in all IBU World Cup races, Olympics and World Championships including relay events and disqualified races. Statistics as of 17 March 2016.
She is a member of the club CSKA (Central Sports Club Of The Army). Growing into the juniors" age group, Sleptsova became a member of the Yugra team of head coach Valery Zakharov.