Alevtina Kolchina

Alevtina Pavlovna Kolchina, born on 11 November 1930 and died on 1 March 2022, was a Soviet cross-country skier who competed in the 1950s and 1960s for the Burevestnik and later the Dynamo sports societies. Born in the village of Pavlovsk in Perm Oblast, she took up skiing at the age of 13 and went on to compete in four Winter Olympics, winning five medals, one gold, one silver and three bronze. At the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships she won eight medals, seven of them gold, and she was Soviet champion thirteen times. She also won at the Holmenkollen ski festival, three times over 10 km and once over 5 km, and in 1963 shared the Holmenkollen medal with her husband Pavel Kolchin, becoming the first Soviet or Russian and the first female Nordic skier to receive it.