Valentina Lituyeva

Valentina Mikhaylovna Lituyeva (Russian: Валентина Михайловна Литуева; 11 December 1930 – 23 July 2008) was a Soviet track and field athlete who competed in the long jump. Her personal best was 6.10 m (20 ft 0 in) and she was the European champion in the event in 1950.

Born Valentina Bogdanova (Russian: Валентина Богданова) in Leningrad, she joined local club Burevestnik Leningrad and ranked within the top ten in the world for the first time in 1949, having jumped a best of 5.76 m (18 ft 10 ³⁄₄ in) that year. She improved to 5.87 m (19 ft 3 in) in the 1950 seasonFellow Soviet athlete Aleksandra Chudina topped the world rankings that year, but in her absence at the 1950 European Athletics Championships Lituyeva won the long jump easily, nearly twenty centimetres ahead of the runner-up Wilhelmine Lust of the Netherlands.

Lituyeva missed the 1951 season but returned for the 1952 Summer Olympics and managed to place eleventh in the final. She improved to 5.98 m (19 ft 7 ¹⁄₄ in) and ranked fifth for the season. Her next international appearance was at the 1955 World Festival of Youth and Students. She won a bronze medal and the level of competition was high, with Galina Vinogradova taking the title with one of the best jumps that year. Lituyeva cleared six metres for the first time with a jump of 6.07 m (19 ft 10 ³⁄₄ in) that November. She remained at a high standard until her last season in 1959, jumping beyond six metres each year and setting a career best of 6.10 m (20 ft 0 in) in Moscow in 1958.

Lituyeva returned to try to regain her long jump title at the 1958 European Athletics Championships, but came up short behind West German athlete Liesel Jakobi and ended up with the silver medal. That was the last major competition that she competed in.