Olha Bryzhina

Who is Olha Bryzhina?

Olha Bryzhina is a retired athlete who represented USSR and later Ukraine. She trained at Dynamo in Voroshilovgrad. Competing in the 400 metres and 4 x 400 metres relay, she was a particularly successful Olympian with three gold medals and one silver. At the 1988 Olympics the Soviet relay team set a new world record of 3:15.17 minutes which is still unbeaten. Bryzhina also became world champion in 1987.

Her personal best of 48.27 seconds is the Woman's 4th best result of all time in a laned 400m race. She achieved this in the same race that Marita Koch set the current 400m world record of 47.60 seconds on 6 October 1985 at the Bruce Stadium in Canberra.

Bryzhina's husband Viktor Bryzhin was also a champion track athlete winning gold in the 4x100m relay event at the 1988 Olympics. Together they have a daughter Yelizaveta Bryzhina who is also a successful track runner specialising in the 200m sprint event.

Bryzhina and her daughter Yelizaveta both have a best performance of 22.44 seconds over 200m as at Dec 2012.