Alena Zavarzina is widely known to sports fans after an excellent performance at the Sochi Olympics, where she won the bronze award in snowboarding. However, not only sporting results brought fame to the girl. The love story of American Vick Wilde and Alena Zavarzina may well serve as the plot for a movie. After all, it was after marrying the Russian beauty that the former “middle peasant” seemed to have gained wings and won two disciplines at once at the 2014 Winter Olympics.
The beginning of the way
Alena Zavarzina was born in Novosibirsk in 1989. The girl’s path to snowboarding was long and winding. First, the parents gave her daughter to rhythmic gymnastics, but due to inventory problems, they were forced to pick her up from there. The second Alina Kabaeva from Alena did not work, and she began to visit the pool.
Nevertheless, in the winter she was fond of a newfangled sport - snowboarding. Gradually, Alena's hobby became her main sports discipline, she gave up swimming and concentrated on her favorite pastime. Zavarzin began with a spectacular Big Air discipline, a kind of acrobatics on the board. A year later, the coach advised her to switch to high-speed snowboarding, and the girl began to perform in parallel slalom and snowboarding.
At the age of seventeen, Alena Zavarzina began her performances at major competitions. The first international tournament for her was the stage of the World Cup in Holland. The young athlete did not achieve special laurels here, but she did not lose heart and continued to work on herself.
Gradually, Alena’s affairs improved, she was one of the three leaders in the junior world championship and European Cup. In 2009, Zavarzina took the silver of the Junior World Cup, and also became the second in the European Cup.
Adult wins
Before the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, a native of Novosibirsk confidently increased her sportsmanship by winning the World Cup in the United States, Canada, and Europe. Alena Zavarzina was considered the hope of Russian snowboarding and many counted on the girl’s medal.
However, in Vancouver, everything went wrong. It began with the fact that the athlete was almost late for the start of the qualification and completely lost concentration from experiences. Alena came to the finish line only seventeenth and was not selected in the 1/8 finals.
The young snowboarder was not broken by the first setbacks, she forgot about the Vancouver failure and began to prepare for the next Olympic cycle. A year later, she, sensationally for many experts, won the World Championships, winning competitions in the parallel giant slalom.
From Sochi to Pyeongchang
Preparations for the 2014 Olympics were oiled in the final period. Before the season began, Alena discovered a hernia of the spine, because of which she had to endure a long course of treatment. The girl barely managed to get in shape for the winter, when in training she absurdly broke her arm 2 months before the start of the largest starts of the four-year period.
By some miracle, Alena Zavarzina manages to undergo the operation and regain her form, firmly intending to perform at the Home Games. This decision turned out to be correct, she whirled through the distance during the competition and earned a bronze medal in the discipline of the parallel giant slalom.
After Sochi, the girl did not slow down, winning several awards at the World Championships in the next Olympic cycle. The most successful season for her was 2016/2017, where for the first time in her career she won the overall standings of the World Cup in parallel giant slalom.
To the great regret of all her many fans, Alena Zavarzina did not succeed in showing off at the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics. Being one of the favorites of the Games, she stopped a step away from the podium, taking an offensive fourth place.
