Discus thrower Nina Ponomareva was 87 years old.

Nina Ponomareva

She broke into a sports Olympus rapidly and uncontrollably, the first Soviet athletes bringing the USSR to Olympic gold and earning from rivals respectful nickname the “iron lady”. Today the great Nina Ponomareva did not.

Daughter of the repressed parents, Ponomareva was born in the hidden village of the Bow of the Sverdlovsk region, in the camp barracks. The sports were, in General, by accident: under the order, according to which a grocery store where he worked as a saleslady nineteen year old Nina, had to send someone from the staff-members of the Komsomol to run cross. At the Olympics Ponomaryova became the third, and this determined her fate.

Fantastically gifted by nature, Nina initially ran, but soon focused on another athletics discipline — discus throwing. After three years of training, in 1952, she was standing on the top step of the Olympic podium in Helsinki. It was the first for the Soviet Union Olympiad and triumph: not only a gold medal and new Olympic record.

Thank Nina Ponomareva was so great that once an athlete became a victim of the plot: in 1956, shortly before the Olympic games in Melbourne, being in London, Nina went to the store. What happened next went down in history as “the incident with the hats, although in reality the athlete has bought the hair band for five pounds. Paid, put it in a bag and was arrested for theft. The next day the Newspapers came out with the title “USSR is losing the Olympic gold!” A month and a half 27-year-old Nina held under virtual house arrest. Nervous she began to turn gray. But in Melbourne went and brought back the bronze.

After finishing his sports career Ponomarev worked as a coach. In recent years, she lived on the outskirts of Moscow and died on 19 Aug 2016.

Nina Ponomareva