Olga Zaitseva

This article is about biathlete. For the tennis player, see Olga Zaitseva (tennis). For the long jumper, see Olga Zaytseva.

In this name that follows East Slavic naming customs, the patronymic is Alekseyevna and the family name is 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.^[2] Shortly afterwards she announced that she had been appointed as caretaker head coach of the Russian biathlon team.^[3]

Olga Zaitseva

Zaitseva at an awards ceremony in the Kremlin in 2010
Personal information
Full name	Olga Alekseyevna Zaitseva
Nickname	"Bunny" (Russian: Зайка)
Born	(1978-05-16) 16 May 1978 (age 46) Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Height	1.68 m (5 ft 6 in)
Weight	66 kg (146 lb)
Website	www.zajceva.ru
Professional information
Sport	Biathlon
Club	Dynamo Moscow, CSKA Moscow[1]
World Cup debut	12 February 2000
Retired	24 January 2015
Olympic Games
Teams	4 (2002, 2006, 2010, 2014)[1]
Medals	3 (2 gold)
World Championships
Teams	8 (2003, 2004, 2005, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013)
Medals	8 (3 gold)
World Cup
Seasons	12 (1999/00, 2001/02–2005/06, 2008/09–2013/14)
Individual races	174
All races	208
Individual victories	12
All victories	26
Individual podiums	37
All podiums	60
Discipline titles	1: 1 Mass start (2004–05)
Medal record Women's biathlon Representing  Russia Olympic Games 2006 Turin 4 × 6 km relay 2010 Vancouver 4 × 6 km relay 2010 Vancouver 12.5 km mass start Disqualified 2014 Sochi 4 × 6 km relay World Championships 2005 Hochfilzen 4 × 6 km relay 2009 Pyeongchang 12.5 km mass start 2009 Pyeongchang 4 × 6 km relay 2005 Hochfilzen 7.5 km sprint 2005 Khanty-Mansiysk Mixed relay 2005 Hochfilzen 10 km pursuit 2009 Pyeongchang 7.5 km sprint 2009 Pyeongchang 10 km pursuit Junior World Championships 1998 Jericho/Valcartier Team 1998 Jericho/Valcartier Individual

Record

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.^[4] She appealed this decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in 2018.^[5] After a postponement that lasted until 2020, the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld her disqualification; however, it lifted her lifetime ban from all Olympic Games.^[6]

Event	Individual	Sprint	Pursuit	Mass Start	Relay	Mixed Relay
2002 Salt Lake City	37th	—	—	—	—	—
2006 Torino	—	9th	19th	15th	Gold
2010 Vancouver	26th	7th	7th	Silver	Gold
2014 Sochi	DSQ (15th)	DSQ (28th)	DSQ (11th)	DSQ (23rd)	DSQ (2nd)	DSQ (4th)

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.

Event	Individual	Sprint	Pursuit	Mass Start	Relay	Mixed Relay
2003 Khanty-Mansiysk	32nd	—	—	—	—	—
2004 Oberhof	49th	—	—	20th	—
2005 Hochfilzen	—	Silver	Bronze	17th	Gold	Silver[b]
2009 Pyeongchang	14th	Bronze	Bronze	Gold	Gold	5th
2011 Khanty-Mansiysk	—	4th	12th	6th	8th	6th
2012 Ruhpolding, Germany	6th	16th	7th	DSQ	7th	5th
2013 Nové Město	6th	4th	4th	5th	4th	6th

World Cup

Olga Zaitseva Kontiolahti 2010

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. All her results from the 2013-14 season after Sochi were voided due to doping offences.^[7]

No.	Season	Individual			Sprint			Pursuit			Mass Start			Overall
		Races	Points	Position	Races	Points	Position	Races	Points	Position	Races	Points	Position	Races	Points	Position
1	2001–02	1/4	–	–	4/8	24	44th	4/9	39	36th	1/3	16	31st	10/24	79	42nd
2	2002–03	2/3	50	14th	8/9	103	23rd	6/7	133	12th	3/4	10	36th	19/23	296	19th
3	2003–04	2/3	14	30th	8/10	208	11th	7/9	209	9th	4/4[c]	55	19th	21/26	489	10th
4	2004–05	2/4	20	36th	9/10	292	3rd	8/9	290	3rd	4/4[c]	136	1st	23/27	752	4th
5	2005–06	2/3	66	8th	8/10	165	15th	6/8	135	14th	4/5	77	14th	20/26	443	15th
6	2006–07	Temporary retirement from the sport due to marriage and childbirth.
7	2007–08
8	2008–09[d]	4/4[c]	113	5th	10/10[c]	308	7th	7/7[c]	219	7th	5/5[c]	162	4th	26/26[e]	834	6th
9	2009–10[d]	3/4	58	24th	9/10	281	7th	5/6	207	3rd	5/5[c]	154	5th	22/25	719	8th
10	2010–11[d]	3/4	138	3rd	8/10	242	13th	5/7	131	17th	4/5	131	11th	20/26	642	12th
11	2011–12[d]	2/3	70	6th	5/10	228	2nd	4/8	180	2nd	1/5	43	4th	12/26	521	3rd

*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.^[8][9]

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.

Individual wins (13) No. Date Location Discipline 1 5 December 2002 Östersund, Sweden Sprint 2 22 February 2003 Östersund, Sweden Individual 3 11 December 2004 Oslo – Holmenkollen, Norway Sprint 4 18 December 2004 Östersund, Sweden Pursuit 5 19 March 2005 Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia Mass Start 6 27 November 2005 Östersund, Sweden Pursuit 7 22 February 2009 Pyeongchang, South Korea (WCH) Mass Start 8 19 March 2009 Trondheim, Norway Sprint 9 13 January 2011 Ruhpolding, Germany Individual 10 16 December 2011 Hochfilzen, Austria Sprint 11 17 December 2011 Hochfilzen, Austria Pursuit 12 13 January 2012 Nove Mesto, Czech Republic Sprint 13 6 January 2013 Oberhof, Germany Pursuit

Relay wins (14) No. Date Location Discipline 1 16 January 2003 Ruhpolding, Germany Mixed Relay 2 13 February 2003 Oslo – Holmenkollen, Norway Relay 3 5 December 2004 Beitostølen, Norway Relay 4 12 January 2005 Ruhpolding, Germany Relay 5 13 February 2005 Torino – Cesana San Sicario, Italy Relay 6 11 March 2005 Hochfilzen, Austria (WCH) Relay 7 11 January 2006 Ruhpolding, Germany Relay 8 23 February 2006 Torino – Cesana San Sicario, Italy (OG) Relay 9 21 February 2009 Pyeongchang, South Korea (WCH) Relay 10 13 December 2009 Hochfilzen, Austria Relay 11 23 February 2010 Vancouver, Canada (OG) Relay 12 22 January 2011 Antholz – Anterselva, Italy Relay 13 18 December 2011 Hochfilzen, Austria Mixed Relay 14 4 January 2012 Oberhof, Germany Relay

• Key:WCH—World Championships; OG—Olympic Games.
  • 2011–12 season in progress. Statistics as of 15 January 2012.^[8]

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).^[8]

Olga Zaitseva strive for victory on 19 March 2009

Result	Individual	Sprint	Pursuit	Mass Start	Relay	Mixed Relay	Total
							Individual events	Team events	All events
1st Place	2	5	3	2	12	2	12	14	26
2nd Place	2	3	4	2	5	1	11	6	17
3rd Place	—	7	6	1	3	—	14	3	17
Podiums	4	15	13	5	20	3	37	23	60
Top 10	9	35	29	15	25	7	88	32	120
Points	16	61	50	29	25	7	156	32	188
Other	5	9	2	2[f]	2[g]	—	18	2	20
Starts	21	70	52	31	27	7	174	34	208

*Results in all IBU World Cup races. Statistics as of 15 January 2012.^[8]

Achievements and honours

Olga Zaitseva with the President of Russia Dmitriy Medvedev at the awards ceremony in the Kremlin in March 2010

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).^[10]
• Medal of the Order "For Merits to the Fatherland" 2nd Class (22 February 2007).^[11]
• Medal of the Order "For Merits to the Fatherland" 2nd Class (17 January 2003).^[12]
• Honoured Master of Sports (2005).

Other Awards

• The Best Russian Athlete of the Year according to the vote at Sportbox.ru — 2011.^[13]

Personal life

Zaitseva has two sisters: Elena (b. 1976) and Oksana (b. 1973), who was her coach.^[14]

On 30 September 2006, Zaitseva married Milan Augustin, a Slovakian biathlon coach; they had a son Aleksandr in 2007,^[15] but divorced in 2013.^[16] 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 was expected to return to coaching in 2016.^[17]

Notes

a. ^{1 2} The mixed relay, contested for the first time in the World Championships, was held in 2005.

b. ¹ The mixed relay was held in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia.

c. ^{1 2 3 4 5 6 7} Until 2010—11 season it was required to leave out the result of the worst discipline race for the final result of discipline world cup (if there were four discipline races or more during the season), so the points in respective columnes «Points» is represented after deduction of the result of the worst discipline race.

d. ^{1 2 3 4} Since 2008—09 season it was applied another points system in World Cup. Earlier biathlete got 50 points for win and top-30 was awarded. Now World Cup give 60 points and top-40 awarded.

e. ¹ Until 2010—11 season it was required to leave out the results of the three worst races for the final result of overall world cup, so the points in respective column «Points» is represented after deduction of the results of the three worst discipline races.

f. ¹ Did not finish (DNF).

g. ¹ Disqualified (DSQ).