Olga Zaitseva

Olga Alekseyevna Zaitseva (Russian: Ольга Алексеевна Зайцева; 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.

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. She appealed this decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

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.

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.

*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.

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.

• 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).

*Results in all IBU World Cup races. Statistics as of 15 January 2012.

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).
• 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.

Zaitseva has two sisters: Elena (b. 1976) and Oksana (b. 1973), who was her coach.

On 30 September 2006 Zaitseva married Milan Augustin, a Slovakian biathlon coach; they had a son Aleksandr born in 2007, but divorced in 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 is expected to return to coaching in 2016.