Aleksandra Chudina


Aleksandra Georgievna Chudina was a Soviet athlete who excelled in field hockey, volleyball, and various track and field events.

Field hockey

Chudina took a wide range of sports and excelled first in field hockey, where she started playing as a defender in 1937 and later changed to a forward. With her team Dynamo Moscow she won several major tournaments at the city and national levels between 1937 and 1947.

Athletics

Chudina then changed to athletics, and had a first international success in 1946, when she finished second in the high jump at the European championships. At the 1952 Summer Olympics she won silver medals in the javelin throw and long jump and a bronze in the high jump. On 22 May 1954, she set a new world record in the high jump at 1.73 meters. The same year she won two European medals in the pentathlon and long jump, but finished only sixth in the high jump.

Volleyball

Between 1947 and 1963 Chudina was also a member, and often the captain, of the Dynamo and national volleyball teams. With the national teams she won world championships in 1952, 1956 and 1960, and European championships in 1949, 1950, 1951 and 1958, finishing second in 1955.

Personal life

Chudina was one of the most popular Soviet sportspersons of the 1950s, and was then used by the Soviet media as an example of superiority of the national sport programs. She was a colorful person who had a coarse low voice, enjoyed alcohol drinking and playing cards in a company, and was a careless car driver. After retiring from competitions she worked as a sports administrator and was soon forgotten. She had developed tuberculosis and lost one leg due to gangrene. A chain smoker through much of her life, she died of a stomach cancer, aged 66.