Elena NIKITINA

OLYMPIC WINTER GAMES
Won the bronze medal at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games (behind Britain's Lizzy Yarnold and USA's Noelle Pikus-Pace), where she set a start house record on her first run. In November 2017, the commission of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), under the leadership of Denis Oswald, decided to annul her results and issued a lifelong ban, but later the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) abolished the penalty. Nikitina and a number of other Russian skeleton racers were recommended by the Russian Olympic Committee to compete at PyeongChang 2018, but the IOC did not invite them to the Games. Despite that, she still went to PyeongChang, in case she got a chance to compete. "I took a backpack with sports things, skeleton, skates, bought a plane ticket and flew away. Not even knowing English!" (tass.com, 23 Feb 2019; sport-express.ru, 2 Jun 2020)

TATTOOS
Her family and friends were against her getting tattoos. "Everyone was against it. But I am such a person that if I have something in mind, I will definitely do it. I wanted, I saw myself in this image. Mom, for example, still thinks that this is all temporary." (sport-express.ru, 2 Jun 2020)

LOVES BALI
Enjoys spending time in Bali, Indonesia for life and spiritual development. "I can talk about the atmosphere of peace of mind there for hours. Sometimes I ride a moped and just smile like a fool at how good I feel." (sport-express.ru, 2 Jun 2020)

© Data by Sports Data Warehouse

OLYMPIC WINTER GAMES
Made her Olympic Winter Games debut at Sochi 2014 setting the start record on her first run, on the way to winning the bronze medal. In November 2017, she was disqualified, her bronze medal removed and was banned for life from Olympic competition, due to allegedly being involved in a scheme involving switched doping samples. After going to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), days before PyeongChang 2018, she was exonerated and her Sochi 2014 bronze medal was reinstated.

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
Three-time World Championships bronze medallist (2016 and 2021 individual, 2021 mixed team). “The medal is good, but I am very unhappy with myself, because it was not possible to improve the fourth run, and in general there were a lot of mistakes along the track. It didn't go as planned. Yes, a medal is good. Like a consolation prize, I guess. But, of course, I wanted to achieve more." (cska.ru)

Won the 2012 Junior World Championships in Innsbruck by a tenth of a second over Sophia Griebel (GER). Fourth in 2016 in Winterberg, with two more eighth-place finishes.

WORLD CUP
First Russian to win the World Cup women's skeleton overall points championship (2018/19), clinching the title with a fifth-place finish in the season finale in Calgary. Before this season, no Russian woman had even finished in the top-three spots of the World Cup standings. Finished third in 2019/20. First World Cup victory was in 2013 in Innsbruck.

EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS
Won her second European title in a row in 2021, and a third in four years.