Tatiana Vasilyevna Kasankina

Tatiana Kasankina
nation	Soviet Union
birthday	17th December 1951
place of birth	Petrovsk ,  Soviet Union
size	162 cm
Weight	47 kg
Career
discipline	Middle distance run
Best performance	1: 54.24 min ( 800 m ) 3: 52.47 min ( 1500 m )
society	Burevestnik Leningrad
status	resigned
Medal table
Olympic games 3 × 0 × 1 × World championships 0 × 0 × 1 × Indoor European Championships 0 × 1 × 0 × Cross Country World Championship 1 × 1 × 0 ×
Olympic games gold Montreal 1976 800 m gold Montreal 1976 1500 m gold Moscow 1980 1500 m  World championships bronze Helsinki 1983 3000 m European Indoor Championships silver Katowice 1975 1500 m  World Cross Country Championships gold Chepstow 1976 team silver Chepstow 1976 silver

Tatjana Wassiljewna Kasankina ( Russian Татьяна Васильевна Казанкина , English transcription Tatyana Kazankina ; born  December 17, 1951 in Petrowsk ) is a former Russian athlete. The middle-distance runner won gold three times at the 1976 and 1980 Olympics .

Life

Kasankina, who started for the Soviet Union , came fourth over 1500 meters at the European Championships in Rome in 1974 . At the European Indoor Championships in 1975 she won the silver medal. In the 1976 Olympic year she was runner-up at the World Cross Country Championships in February . Four weeks before the Olympic Games , she ran a new world record over 1,500 meters and was the first woman to stay under four minutes. In Montreal, she started in the 800-meter run and won the gold medal in a new world record time ahead of Bulgarian Nikolina Schterewa and GDR runner Elfi Zinn . Four days later she also won Olympic gold on the 1,500 meter course ahead of the two GDR runners Gunhild Hoffmeister and Ulrike Klapezynski .

The following year, Kasankina won the 1500 meter course at the first World Cup in Düsseldorf. At the Cross Country World Championships in 1978 , however, she only came in 19th place. In 1979 Kasankina became a mother and took a break from competition. In July 1980 she improved her own world record over 1500 meters. Four weeks later at the Olympic Games in Moscow she again won the gold medal on this route ahead of the GDR German Christiane Wartenberg and her compatriot Nadija Olisarenko . Almost a fortnight later she improved the world record again and was the first woman to be faster than Paavo Nurmi .

Then she switched to the 3000-meter course . At the World Championships in Helsinki she won the bronze medal. In July 1984 she set a world record, but at the Olympic Games , which took place in Los Angeles that year, she could not start because of the boycott of the Soviet Union. Her career came to an abrupt end in September 1984. At a meeting in Paris, she won the 5000-meter course for the first time , but she refused the doping test and was banned for 18 months. After her doping ban , Kasankina only appeared once more internationally. At the first world championship in 15 km road running , she was fifth in 1986 and won gold with the Soviet team.

Kasankina set a total of seven world records. Her time of 3: 52.47 minutes over 1500 meters, achieved on August 13, 1980 at the Weltklasse Zürich meeting , lasted for over 13 years and was a European record until October 5, 2019. She belonged to Burevestnik Leningrad and was 162 cm tall and 47 kg heavy at competition times.

She married Alexander Kovalenko and has two children. After her sports career, Kasankina became a sports teacher and head of a sports institute in St. Petersburg .

Personal bests

• 800 m : 1: 54.24 min, July 26, 1976, Montreal
• 1500 m : 3: 52.47 min, August 13, 1980, Zurich
• 3000 m : 8: 22.62 min, August 26, 1984, Leningrad

Awards

• 1980: World Sportswoman of the Year ( La Gazzetta dello Sport )

Web links

• Tatjana Kasankina in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)
• Tatjana Kasankina in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Tatyana Kazankina in the database of World Athletics (English)