Yelena Gorchakova

Jelena Yegorovna Gorchakova (Russian: Елена Егоровна Горчакова, English transcription Yelena Gorchakova, . Born May 17, 1933, Moscow, † 27 January 2002) was a Soviet javelin thrower.

At the age of 19 she won at the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, with a length of 49.76 m the Bronze medal in the javelin behind the Czecho- Slovak Dana Zátopková ( 50.47 m) and her teammate Alexandra Tschudina ( 50.01 m). Although they belonged to the world's top year after year, she could not for a long time to qualify for more international championships, because the competition in the Soviet Union was extremely large.

In the 1960s Gorchakova came again reinforced in appearance. In the Universiade 1961 in Sofia, she won the gold medal in front of the Romanian Maria Diaconescu and Deutsche Almut Brömmel. The following year she finished in eighth place at the European Athletics Championships in Belgrade. In 1963 she became Soviet champion. The highlight of her international career she experienced at the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 1964, twelve years after her first Olympic participation. In qualifying they threw the spear at 62.40 m, surpassing the world record her compatriot Elvira Ozoliņa to 2.66 m. Ozoliņa had indeed already reached 61.38 m in the same year, this performance was not officially recognized. Seen in Gortschkowas attempt the first 60 m by a woman. However, in the final they did not achieve comparable performance. You did not get beyond 57.06 m and had to settle for third place behind the Romanian Mihaela Peneş ( 60.54 m) and the Hungarian Márta Rudas content ( 58.27 m).

Then it was 1965 again Soviet champion and finished at the European Athletics Championships in Budapest in 1966 to fourth place.