Sofiya Velikaya

Sofya Alexandrovna Welikaja (Russian Софья Александровна Великая, born June 8, 1985 in Alma- Ata, Kazakh SSR ) is a Russian saber fencer, fencing five times World Champion and six-time European champion fencing. It is challenging for CSKA Moscow.

Achievements

Since 2002 she has contests in the Russian team, 2003, she was then for the first time in Bourges European champion and repeated the next year in Copenhagen. In the same year in New York, a few days after her 19th birthday, she became world champion team. In 2005 won Welikaja two silver medals ( team and individual) at the World Championships in Leipzig and achieved the same result at the European Championships in Zalaegerszeg. In 2006 Welikaja won two gold medals at the European Championships in Izmir, as well as a bronze medal in fencing team at the World Championships in Turin. In 2007, she won at the European Championships in Ghent individual silver, bronze in the team. Also bronze with the team she received at the World Championships in St. Petersburg. In 2008 she won in Kiev for the fifth time the European Championship, while for the second time in the individual competition. In 2009 and 2010 at the European Championships won Welikaja three silver medals. 2010, at the World Championships in Paris, she won her second World Cup medal in singles - bronze. The Russian team won gold in the final against Ukraine and was for the second time world champion team. The following year at the World Championships in Catania, she won the first World Championship gold medal in singles and the third time gold in the team competition. At the European Championships in Sheffield she won the team bronze. In the spring of 2012 in Kiev Welikaja again won with the team the World Cup, in June, the team also won the European Championships in Italy. They thus gained since 2003 fourteen medals at European championships and ten at the World Championships.

Your first Olympic Games were in 2008 in Beijing. In individual Welikaja won the first three rounds and the quarter-final battle against the Chinese Tan Xue with a score of 15:9. In the semifinals, she met the American fencer Sada Jacobson and lost with a score of 11:15. In the battle for the bronze medal she met another American woman Rebecca Ward and lost in a fierce battle with just under 14:15. The Russian national team resigned already in the quarter finals against the subsequent Olympic champion from Ukraine with a score of 34:45 in the team competition.

At the Olympic Games in London Welikaja won the quarter-finals with a score of 15:12 against the Ukrainian Olha Charlan. In the final, she lost to the Korean fencer Kim Ji- yeon with 9:15 and got silver.