Margarita Koczanowa

Margarita Koczanowa (born 1 February 1999) is a Polish middle-distance runner. In 2023, she became Polish national indoor 800 metres champion at the Polish Indoor Athletics Championships.

Early and personal life Born in Grodno to a Russian father, her mother's parents are Polish and she spoke the Polish language at home. She obtained a Polish passport in the spring of 2021 and had to forego her Belarusian citizenship. She had left Belarus for Poland to study in Łódź in 2017 before later living with her sister in Kraków.

Career In 2018, she represented Belarus in the 2018 World Athletics U20 Championships in Tampere, Finland and at that time trained with Henryka Blausz. That year, Koczanowa made her senior debut in Polish colours, racing at the 2023 European Athletics Indoor Championships in Istanbul, Turkey and the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary.

From January 2024, she began to be trained by Andrzej Giza, and from March 2025, she began to run under the direction of Aneta Lemiesz. In May 2025, she improved her personal best for the 800 metres to 2:00.87 whilst competing at the Janusz Kusociński Memorial in Chorzów. She then ran at the 2025 Meeting International Mohammed VI d'Athlétisme de Rabat, part of the 2025 Diamond League. Later that month, she ran a new 800 metres personal best of 1:59.94 at the World Athletics Continental Tour Gold meeting in Bydgoszcz.

She set a new personal best at the 2025 Kamila Skolimowska Memorial, in Poland, with a run of 1:59.90 for the 800 metres. She competed in the women's 800 metres at the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, Japan, running another personal best of 1:59.37, without advancing to the semi-finals.