Olga Alekseyevna Zaitseva (; born 16 May 1978) is a former Russian biathlete. She began her career in 1994. After not competing in the 2014–15 season, Zaitseva announced her retirement on 24 January 2015. Shortly afterwards she announced that she had been appointed as caretaker head coach of the Russian biathlon team.

Record

Olympic Games Zaitseva has won two gold medals and one silver medal at the Winter Olympic Games.

On 1 December 2017, she was disqualified from the 2014 Winter Olympics for doping offences.Full decision regarding Olga Zaytseva at International Olympic Committee She appealed this decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in 2018. After a postponement that lasted until 2020, the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld her disqualification; however, it lifted her lifetime ban from all Olympic Games.

EventIndividualSprintPursuitMass StartRelayMixed Relay 2002 Salt Lake City 37th — — — — rowspan=3 2006 Torino — 9th 19th 15th Gold 2010 Vancouver 26th 7th 7th Silver Gold 2014 Sochi DSQ (15th) DSQ (28th) DSQ (11th) DSQ (23rd) DSQ (2nd) DSQ (4th)

World Championships Zaitseva has won eight medals — three gold, two silver and three bronze. All her World Championship medals Zaitseva won in two Championships: 2005 Hochfilzen, Austria and 2009 Pyeongchang, South Korea.

Event Individual Sprint Pursuit Mass Start Relay Mixed Relay 2003 Khanty-Mansiysk 32nd — — — — rowspan=2 2004 Oberhof 49th — — 20th — 2005 Hochfilzen — Silver Bronze 17th Gold Silver 2009 Pyeongchang 14th Bronze Bronze Gold Gold 5th 2011 Khanty-Mansiysk — 4th 12th 6th 8th 6th 2012 Ruhpolding, Germany 6th 16th 7th DSQ 7th 5th 2013 Nové Město 6th 4th 4th 5th 4th 6th

World Cup

During her first 1999—2000 World Cup season, Zaitseva only appeared in one race, didn't scoring for the overall standings. Starting from the second half 2001—02 season, she became a regular in the Russian World Cup team. The best result is the 4th place in the 2004—05 season and winning the mass start discipline cup of the same season. All her results from the 2013-14 season after Sochi were voided due to doping offences.

No. Season Individual Sprint Pursuit Mass Start Overall 1 2001–02 1/4 – – 4/8 24 44th 4/9 39 36th 1/3 16 31st 10/24 79 42nd 2 2002–03 2/3 50 14th 8/9 103 23rd 6/7 133 12th 3/4 10 36th 19/23 296 19th 3 2003–04 2/3 14 30th 8/10 208 11th 7/9 209 9th 4/4 55 19th 21/26 489 10th 4 2004–05 2/4 20 36th 9/10 292 3rd 8/9 290 3rd 4/4 136 1st 23/27 752 4th 5 2005–06 2/3 66 8th 8/10 165 15th 6/8 135 14th 4/5 77 14th 20/26 443 15th 6 2006–07Temporary retirement from the sport due to marriage and childbirth. 7 2007–08 8 2008–09 4/4 113 5th 10/10 308 7th 7/7 219 7th 5/5 162 4th 26/26 834 6th 9 2009–10 3/4 58 24th 9/10 281 7th 5/6 207 3rd 5/5 154 5th 22/25 719 8th 10 2010–11 3/4 138 3rd 8/10 242 13th 5/7 131 17th 4/5 131 11th 20/26 642 12th 11 2011–12 2/3 70 6th 5/10 228 2nd 4/8 180 2nd 1/5 43 4th 12/26 521 3rd

*Key:Races—number of entered races/all races; Points—won World Cup points; Position—World Cup season ranking. **2011–12 season in progress. Statistics as of 15 January 2012.Olga Zaitseva. IBU Profile

World Cup wins Over the course of her career, Zaitseva has reached twelve personal World Cup wins. In the history of the International Biathlon Union she is ranked twelfth for all-time career victories. In addition, she has won twelve relay races and two mixed relay events as part of the Russian World Cup team.

+ Individual wins (13) No. Date Location Discipline 1 5 December 2002 Östersund, Sweden Sprint 2 22 February 2003 Östersund, Sweden Individual 3 11 December 2004 Oslo – Holmenkollen, Norway Sprint 4 18 December 2004 Östersund, Sweden Pursuit 5 19 March 2005 Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia Mass Start 6 27 November 2005 Östersund, Sweden Pursuit 7 22 February 2009 Pyeongchang, South Korea (WCH) Mass Start 8 19 March 2009 Trondheim, Norway Sprint 9 13 January 2011 Ruhpolding, Germany Individual 10 16 December 2011 Hochfilzen, Austria Sprint 11 17 December 2011 Hochfilzen, Austria Pursuit 12 13 January 2012 Nove Mesto, Czech Republic Sprint 13 6 January 2013 Oberhof, Germany Pursuit+ Relay wins (14) No. Date Location Discipline 1 16 January 2003 Ruhpolding, Germany Mixed Relay 2 13 February 2003 Oslo – Holmenkollen, Norway Relay 3 5 December 2004 Beitostølen, Norway Relay 4 12 January 2005 Ruhpolding, Germany Relay 5 13 February 2005 Torino – Cesana San Sicario, Italy Relay 6 11 March 2005 Hochfilzen, Austria (WCH) Relay 7 11 January 2006 Ruhpolding, Germany Relay 8 23 February 2006 Torino – Cesana San Sicario, Italy (OG) Relay 9 21 February 2009 Pyeongchang, South Korea (WCH) Relay 10 13 December 2009 Hochfilzen, Austria Relay 11 23 February 2010 Vancouver, Canada (OG) Relay 12 22 January 2011 Antholz – Anterselva, Italy Relay 13 18 December 2011 Hochfilzen, Austria Mixed Relay 14 4 January 2012 Oberhof, Germany Relay

Key:WCH—World Championships; OG—Olympic Games. 2011–12 season in progress. Statistics as of 15 January 2012.

Overall record As of January 2012, Zaitseva has competed in a total of 208 races at senior level, winning 26 of them (a 12.5 win percentage), including 174 races with 12 wins (a 6.9 win percentage) in individual events. She has claimed at least two wins in each discipline of biathlon. Zaitseva has reached a total of 60 World Cup podiums (28.8%): 37 in individual races (21.3%) and 23 in team events (67.6%). In addition, she has achieved 120 top ten finishes — 57.7% of all the races she has entered (including 88 top ten results (50.6%) in individual races).

ResultIndividualSprintPursuitMass StartRelayMixed RelayTotal Individual events Team events All events 1st Place 2 5 3 2 12 2 12 14 26 2nd Place 2 3 4 2 5 1 11 6 17 3rd Place — 7 6 1 3 — 14 3 17 Podiums 4 15 13 5 20 3 37 23 60 Top 10 9 35 29 15 25 7 88 32 120 Points 16 61 50 29 25 7 156 32 188 Other 5 9 2 2 2 — 18 2 20 Starts 21 70 52 31 27 7 174 34 208 *Results in all IBU World Cup races. Statistics as of 15 January 2012.

Achievements and honours

Sport titles Winter Olympics 2010 – Gold medal in the Relay, silver medal in the 12.5 km Mass Start 2006 – Gold medal in the Relay World Championships 2009 – Gold medal in the 12.5 km Mass Start and Relay, bronze in the 7.5 km Sprint and 10 km Pursuit 2005 – Gold medal in the Relay, silver in the 7.5 km Sprint and Mixed Relay and bronze in the 10 km Pursuit. Mass Start World Cup winner — 2004–05

State Decorations and Awards The Order of Friendship (5 March 2010).Указ Президента Российской Федерации от 5 марта 2010 года № 278 «О награждении государственными наградами Российской Федерации» Medal of the Order "For Merits to the Fatherland" 2nd Class (22 February 2007). Medal of the Order "For Merits to the Fatherland" 2nd Class (17 January 2003). Honoured Master of Sports (2005).

Other awards The Best Russian Athlete of the Year according to the vote at Sportbox.ru — 2011.«Золотой пьедестал»: Зайцева – лучший спортсмен России 2011 года! – SportBox.ru

Personal life Zaitseva has two sisters: Elena (b. 1976) and Oksana (b. 1973), who was her coach.Оксана Рочева: «Ольга Зайцева бережет всех своих зайцев». trud.ru. 21 January 2010

On 30 September 2006, Zaitseva married Milan Augustin, a Slovak biathlon coach; they had a son Aleksandr in 2007,Babei, Vitold (18 March 2007) Сын чемпионки. gazeta.ru. but divorced in 2013.Ольга Зайцева развелась с мужем. eurosport.ru. 4 August 2013 In October 2015, Zaitseva gave birth to her second son Stepan. Around that time, she stopped coaching and was employed as a consultant for the Russian biathlon team. She was expected to return to coaching in 2016.Двукратная олимпийская чемпионка по биатлону Зайцева во второй раз стала матерью. tass.ru. 17 October 2015

Notes

a. The mixed relay, contested for the first time in the World Championships, was held in 2005. b. The mixed relay was held in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. c. Until 2010—11 season it was required to leave out the result of the worst discipline race for the final result of discipline world cup (if there were four discipline races or more during the season), so the points in respective columnes «Points» is represented after deduction of the result of the worst discipline race. d. Since 2008—09 season it was applied another points system in World Cup. Earlier biathlete got 50 points for win and top-30 was awarded. Now World Cup give 60 points and top-40 awarded. e. Until 2010—11 season it was required to leave out the results of the three worst races for the final result of overall world cup, so the points in respective column «Points» is represented after deduction of the results of the three worst discipline races. f. Did not finish (DNF). g. Disqualified (DSQ).

References

External links

Official website

Profile on RBU website Statistics at biathlon.com.ua Profile on CSKA website Olga Zaitseva: Lynchpin of the Russian biathlon squad