Iryna Kryuko

Iryna Kryuko
Association	Belarus
birthday	30th July 1991 (age 29)
place of birth	Sjanno,  Soviet Union
size	159 cm
Weight	50 kg
Career
Debut in the European Cup / IBU Cup	2010
Debut in the World Cup	2011
status	active
Medal table
Olympic medals 1 × 0 × 0 × EM medals 1 × 1 × 3 × JWM medals 0 × 1 × 2 × JEM medals 0 × 0 × 1 ×
winter Olympics gold 2018 Pyeongchang Season  European biathlon championships gold 2014 Nové Město na Moravě Season bronze 2014 Nové Město na Moravě singles silver 2019 Minsk-Raubitschy persecution bronze 2019 Minsk-Raubitschy singles bronze 2020 Minsk-Raubitschy sprint  Biathlon Junior World Championships silver 2009 Canmore Youth relay bronze 2010 Torsby Youth relay bronze 2012 Kontiolahti persecution  Biathlon Junior European Championships bronze 2011 Ridnaun Mixed relay
World Cup balance
Overall World Cup	15. ( 2018/19 )
Individual World Cup	21. ( 2017/18 )
Sprint World Cup	18. (2018/19)
Pursuit World Cup	16. (2018/19)
Mass start world cup	07. (2017/18)
Podium placements 1. 2. 3. Mass start 0 1 0 Season 0 1 0
last change: August 4, 2020

Iryna Kryuko ( Belarusian Ірына Крыўко , born July 30, 1991 in Sjanno , Belarusian SSR , Soviet Union ) is a Belarusian biathlete . In 2011 she made her debut in the Biathlon World Cup and came on the podium for the first time in a single race in December 2017. With the relay, she became Olympic champion in 2018.

Career

Beginnings and first World Cup appearances (until 2014)

Kryuko was born in northeast Belarus, in the Vitebsk region. After her parents' divorce, she and her younger brother Wiktar - who later also competed in the World Cup as a biathlete - grew up with their mother. During her childhood the family home burned down; she then moved to the local sports school. At the suggestion of her sports teacher, Kryuko began biathlon training. She played her first international competitions in the youth field at the 2009 World Youth Championships in Canmore , where she won silver in the relay with Nelia Nikalajewa and Darja Neszertschyk and was fourth in the 10-kilometer individual competition, missing a medal by ten seconds. Until 2012, Kryuko continued to regularly take part in the World and European Championships in their age group. In 2010 she won the bronze medal with the relay at the World Youth Championship , and in 2011 she won bronze again as the starting runner of the mixed relay at the junior competitions of the European Championships . She won her first international individual medal as third in the pursuit at the Junior World Championships in 2012 in Kontiolahti.

In the winter of 2010/11 Kryuko made his debut in the IBU Cup , the second highest racing series in the adult segment. In all competitions she was among the top 40, as the best result of the season she achieved a 19th place in the pursuit of Obertilliach . A year later she received her first appearances in the biathlon world cup , where she won her first world cup point in December 2011 in the pursuit race of Hochfilzen in 40th place. At the 2012 World Championships , Kryuko gave up prematurely on her only start in singles. Until 2014 she was nominated alternately for the IBU Cup and the World Cup, initially without establishing herself permanently in the first Belarusian team. At the European Championships in 2014 , which were exuberant by many World Cup starters , Kryuko won the bronze medal in the individual - 9.7 seconds behind the winner Audrey Vaillancourt - and became the European relay champion alongside Ala Talkatsch , Aksana Schymanowitsch and Nastassja Kalina .

Establishment in the World Cup and Olympic victory (since 2014)

From the 2014/15 season , Kryuko became an integral part of the Belarusian World Cup team. In January 2015 she ran in Ruhpolding with the relay around Nadseja Skardsina , Nadseja Pissarawa and Darja Domratschawa in second place and was thus on the podium of a World Cup race for the first time. As the best individual result, she achieved a ninth place in the pursuit of Nové Město. In the two following winters, she maintained this level and finished in 54th and 38th overall World Cup. She lagged behind the results of Domratschawa and Skardsina - whom she referred to in a later interview as the “two leaders” of the team - but counted next to them to the strongest biathletes in their country. In December 2017, at the Annecy - Le Grand-Bornand mass start, Kryuko was the only female athlete in the 30-man field to hit with all 20 shots, finishing second, 11.2 seconds behind Justine Braisaz . At the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang , Kryuko was part of the Belarusian Olympic squad and took part in five of six competitions. Her best individual result was 17th place, which she achieved in the sprint and pursuit. In the Olympic relay she ran in second position, took over the race from Nadseja Skardsina in tenth place and handed it over to Dsinara Alimbekawa in fifth . Final runner Darja Domratschawa led the quartet to Olympic victory. In February 2018, Belarusian President Aljaksandr Lukashenka awarded all four runners the medal for personal courage (Ордэн “За асабістую мужнасць”).

Both Domratschawa and Skardsina resigned after the 2018 Winter Games. In the newly formed Belarusian World Cup team, Kryuko was the strongest athlete from 2018 to 2020. In the 2018/19 season , she reached the top ten in seven of the first fifteen World Cup races. At the end of the season, she skipped several competitions in preparation for the World and European Championships - at the behest of her coaches - and fell back from seventh to fifteenth place in the overall ranking of the World Cup. At the home European championship 2019 in Minsk-Raubitschy , she won bronze in the individual and silver in the pursuit. The following year, the European Championships took place in Raubitschy for the second time in a row, and as third in the sprint, Kryuko won another medal.

statistics

World Cup placements

The table shows all placements (depending on the year, including the Olympic Games and World Championships).

• 1st - 3rd Place: Number of podium placements
• Top 10: Number of placements in the top ten (including podium)
• Points ranks: Number of placements within the point ranks (including podium and top 10)
• Starts: Number of races run in the respective discipline

placement	singles	sprint	persecution	Mass start	Season	total
1st place
2nd place				1	1	2
3rd place
Top 10		3	6th	5	19th	33
Scoring	7th	27	24	14th	36	108
Starts	18th	61	35	14th	36	164
Status: end of season 2019/20

Biathlon world championships

Results at world championships:

World Championship		Individual competitions				Relay competitions
year	place	sprint	persecution	singles	Mass start	Women's relay	Mixed relay	Single mixed relay
2012	Ruhpolding	-	-	DNF	-	-	-
2015	Kontiolahti	-	-	19th	-	6th	-
2016	Oslo	66.	-	64.	-	18th	9.
2017	Hochfilzen	36.	45.	14th	-	9.	22nd
2019	Ostersund	26th	33.	62.	24.	11.	-	-
2020	Antholz	52.	49.	30th	-	13.	12	-

winter Olympics

Results at Olympic Winter Games:

	Individual competitions				Relay competitions
	sprint	persecution	singles	Mass start	Women's relay	Mixed relay
Olympic Winter Games 2018 | Pyeongchang	17th	17th	36.	26th	1.	-

Web links

Commons : Iryna Kryuko  - Collection of Images

• Iryna Kryuko in the database of the IBU (English)
• Portrait on the side of the National Olympic Committee of the Republic of Belarus (Belarusian)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Iryna Kryuko. Eurosport , accessed February 23, 2020 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Ivanna Nikolskaya: Success - not thanks, but despite the circumstances. In: Biathlonworld. No. 50/2019, pp. 86-91. Available as PDF .
3. ↑ Лукашенко наградил белорусских биатлонисток - олимпийских чемпионок орденами "За личное мужество" on minsknews.by. February 22, 2018.