Kateryna Adamenko

Kateryna Zakharivna Adamenko (7 November 1918 – 21 May 2012) was a Ukrainian athlete and coach, Honored Master of Sports of the USSR, repeated champion of the USSR and Ukraine in the pentathlon, long jump, and running 80 and 100 meters with barriers. Mother of Ukrainian football player and football coach Oleg Blokhin.

Early life and education Kateryna Adamenko was born on 7 November 1918 in Nebrat village, Borodyanka district, Kyiv region. In 1932, Adamenko being a 14-year-old schoolgirl went to Kyiv to study as a seamstress at the Kyiv Factory School at the Gorky Garment Factory. This is where her sports career began. Adamenko participated in the citywide athletics cross on the route Bessarabka - "Red Stadium" (today - NSC "Olympic") and, unexpectedly for everyone, won the race, and was immediately invited to the Kyiv national athletics team. On Sunday, June 22, 1941, Katerina was supposed to participate in a sports parade at the opening of the renovated Red Stadium, which, after reconstruction, was named after Nikita Khrushchev but the celebration did not take place due to the outbreak of the war. The same year she married for the second time to Interior Ministry officer Volodymyr Blokhin.