Vera Krepkina

Olympic medal record
Women's Athletics
Competitor for  Soviet Union
Gold	1960 Rome	Long jump

Vera Samuilovna Krepkina (later Kalashnikova, Russian: Вера Самуиловна Крепкина (Калашникова); born April 16, 1933) is a retired Russian athlete who competed for the Soviet Union.

She is Jewish,^[1] and was born in Kotelnich. She trained in Vologda and later in Kiev at Lokomotiv.

In 1954 at Bern, she a won gold medal in the European championships 4x100-meter relay, with Maria Leontyavna Itkina and two other Soviet runners.^[2] In 1956, she was part of a team from the USSR that set a world record in the same race.^[3]

In 1958, she matched the world record in the 100 meter dash, running it in 11.3 seconds.^[4]

Krepkina competed for the USSR in the 1960 Summer Olympics held in Rome, Italy. Better known as a sprinter, she won a surprise gold in the Long Jump with an Olympic record of 6.37, ahead of the defending champion Elżbieta Krzesińska and the world record holder Hildrun Claus.^[5]

Krepkina was awarded Order of Lenin (1960).

See also

• List of select Jewish track and field athletes

References

• profile