Jelena Nikitina started skeleton in 2008 and joined the national team in 2009. In the 2010/11 season she made her debut in the European Cup and was able to achieve several placements among the top 15. Then she was used in the 2011/12 season in addition to the European Cup in the Intercontinental Cup , where she was able to achieve fourth place in Sigulda . At the Junior World Championships 2012 in Igls , Nikitina was eighth. In the winter of 2012/13 Nikitina started in the North American Cup for the first time and was able to convince in the first races of the season in Calgary with places six and four. She then made her debut in Winterberg in the World Cup . Shortly afterwards she became Junior World Champion 2012 in Igls and celebrated two victories in the Intercontinental Cup in the same place . In the same month she also won her first World Cup race in Igls and was also European champion . At the 2013 World Cup in St. Moritz , she finished 15th.
In the 2013/14 season she came back to the World Cup after good results in the North American Cup , with her best placement a second place in Calgary. She won the bronze medal at the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi . She started the 2014/15 World Cup in January 2015 with a third place in Altenberg after she had contested the first two races of the season in the Intercontinental Cup . In the following races she could not build on this performance with places between 9 and 17; at the Junior World Championships in Altenberg she was eighth. The world championship in Winterberg was over for Nikitina after just a few seconds, as she stepped on the sled at the start of the first run, it got out of the inrun and she could not jump up. In the 2015/16 season, Nikitina first started three races in the World Cup , where she was sixth at the start of the season, and then switched to the Intercontinental Cup , where she won twice. After finishing eighth at the European Championships in St. Moritz, she won silver with the team and bronze in the individual competition at the World Championships in Igls. On November 19, 2017, Nikitina celebrated her second World Cup victory in Park City .
At the end of 2016, Nikitina was suspended from Sochi alongside Alexander Tretyakov , Olga Potylizyna and Marija Orlowa in the course of the investigation into the McLaren report for alleged doping offenses during the 2014 Olympic Games. In 2017, she received a lifelong Olympic ban. In February 2018, the International Sports Court of Justice reversed the withdrawal of their medal due to insufficient evidence and lifted the ban.
Russia
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