Vera Zozulya

Vera Zozula (Russian Вера Васильевна Зозуля, Vera Wassiljewna Sosulja; born January 15, 1956 in Talsi, Latvian SSR, then the Soviet Union) is a former Latvian luger, the Olympic champion was starting for the Soviet Union.

Vera Zozula is one of the most successful Soviet luger interior. Before she focused on race on the ice track, she started at competitions in tobogganing, but without notable success. 1975 and 1976 it secured in each case the Soviet Championship. They scored the first major success when she in Hammarstrand European champion in 1976. Two years later she won the bronze medal, as the Continental Cup was held there again. In the same year she became world champion in Imst, after it had already become 1977 World silver medalist behind Margit Schumann. In 1981, she completed her set of medals at the World Championships with the third rank behind Melitta target man and Cerstin Schmidt. In 1982, she won the overall title at the Luge World Cup. During the season they won their only World Cup race in Tatranská Lomnica.

Your first Olympic participation in 1976 in Innsbruck brought her ninth place, she was the only starter of their country in the women's competition. Four years later, at the 1980 Olympic Games in Lake Placid she managed to all the more convincing success. She ran fastest time in all four runs and was Olympic champion. She was not only the first Latvian gold medal winner at the Olympic Games, but is still ( Vancouver 2010), the only non- German -speaking luge athlete who won gold in the luge at the Winter Olympics. Your last appearance at the Olympics in Sarajevo in 1984 she had when she was behind three 's women of the GDR and its club -mate at Vārpa Rīga, Ingrida Amantova, Fifth.

After the 1978 World Cup Honored Master of Sports was awarded the title Zozula. She graduated in 1985, a coach training at the Московская государственная академия физической культуры ( Moscow State Academy of Physical Education ) from and then worked as a trainer for the Polish Luge Association. In 1995 they moved to their home in Latvia as national coach, where she was responsible for the Latvian Olympic teams in 1998 and 2002. Since 2012, she coached the national team of Kazakhstan.