Svetlana Sleptsova

Svetlana Yuryevna Sleptsova (; born 31 July 1986 in Khanty Mansiysk) is a retired Russian biathlete. She is a member of the club CSKA (Central Sports Club of the Army). She is a three-time Junior World Champion and won the bronze medal in the mixed relay at the 2008 World Championships in Östersund. In 2009, she was part of the gold medal winning Russian women's relay team at the World Championships in Pyeongchang. Sleptsova is an Olympic champion in relay at Vancouver.

In February 2020, Sleptsova was found guilty of an anti-doping violation and had her results from 2013-14 disqualified. She was further identified as being a protected athlete as part of the Russian state doping program by whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov, in which he alleges that her positive drug test from an in-competition test result was attributed to another athlete through state intervention.

Career

Sleptsova achieved her first success in 2001, when she won the A. Strepetova prize at the Russian Youth Championships. In 2005 she won the individual competition at the Youth World Championships in Kontiolahti (Finland), 1:15 minutes ahead of Vita Semerenko. She did her World Cup debut at Pokljuka in 2007. She achieved two victories at Martell—in the sprint and pursuit competitions, respectively. At the Senior Russian Championships she won three medals, and received a ticket to the country's main national team.

Sleptsova finished the sprint at Oberhof, Germany as second, and repeated this result in the subsequent week at Ruhpolding. Later, after the disqualification of Kaisa Varis (Finland), she was awarded the victory of this competition. Sleptsova arrived at the 2008 World Championships in Östersund and won the bronze medal in the mixed relay competition. At the end of the season, at Oslo-Holmenkollen, she achieved her first "real" victory, finally standing on top of the pedestal, and won the pursuit competition as well. She came up with similar results at the 2008 Russian Championships, winning three gold medals and the grand prize—a car. As of 2009, she has three world cup victories, excluding the one Varis retrieved after being cleared to compete again after IBU had broken test correction process.

Sleptsova's last competition was the 2017 Summer Biathlon World Championships in Chaykovskiy, Russia. There, she won on all three disciplines (sprint, pursuit and mixed). Following that, Sleptsova announced her retirement on 27 August 2017, to instead focus on family life.

Biathlon results All results are sourced from the International Biathlon Union.

Olympic Games 1 medal (1 gold) EventIndividualSprintPursuitRelay 2010 Vancouver — 13th 18th 14th Gold The mixed relay was added as an event in 2014.

World Championships 2 medals (1 gold, 1 bronze) EventIndividualSprintPursuitRelay 2008 Östersund — 6th 8th 17th 4th Bronze 2009 Pyeongchang — 36th 28th 19th Gold 5th 2011 Khanty-Mansiysk — — — — 8th 6th 2012 Ruhpolding 7th 7th 16th 24th 7th — 2017 Hochfilzen 71st 33rd 24th — 10th — During Olympic seasons competitions are only held for those events not included in the Olympic program.

Junior/Youth World Championships 6 medals (3 gold, 1 silver, 2 bronze) EventIndividualSprintPursuitRelay 2004 Haute-Maurienne 11th 42nd 16th 4th 2005 Kontiolahti Gold 7th Silver Bronze 2006 Presque Isle 6th 18th 14th Bronze 2007 Martell-Val Martello 5th Gold Gold 4th

Individual podiums 5 victories – (3 Sp, 2 Pu) 16 podiums – (7 Sp, 6 Pu, 2 MS, 1 In) Results are from UIPMB and IBU races which include the Biathlon World Cup, Biathlon World Championships and the Winter Olympic Games.

Relay podiums 6 victories – (6 RL) 16 podiums – (14 RL, 2 MR) Results are from UIPMB and IBU races which include the Biathlon World Cup, Biathlon World Championships and the Winter Olympic Games.

Overall record ResultIndividualSprintPursuitMass StartRelayMixedRelayTotalIndividual eventsTeam eventsAll events1st place – 3 2 – 6 – 5 6 112nd place 1 3 4 – 3 – 8 3 113rd place – 1 – 2 5 2 3 7 10 Podiums 1 7 6 2 14 2 16 16 32 Top 10 7 19 15 6 22 6 47 28 75 Points 12 46 32 19 22 6 109 28 137 Other 2 13 1 – 3 – 16 3 19 Starts 14 59 33 19 25 6 125 31 156

a. Includes mixed relay and single mixed relay, the event involves one male and one female biathlete each completing two legs consisting of one prone and one standing shoot. b. Disqualified (DSQ). Statistics as of 8 March 2017.

Shooting Shooting2006–07 season 2007–08 season 2008–09 season 2009–10 season 2010–11 season 2011–12 season Prone position 52 / 60 86.7% 163 / 179 91.1% 158 / 183 86.3% 143 / 170 84.1% 169 / 204 82.8% 179 / 213 84.0% Standing position 45 / 60 75.0% 148 / 181 81.8% 134 / 183 73.2% 140 / 168 83.3% 164 / 205 80.0% 170 / 208 81.7% Total 97 / 120 80.8% 311 / 360 86.4% 292 / 366 79.8% 283 / 338 83.7% 333 / 409 81.4% 349 / 421 82.9% Shooting2012–13 season 2013–14 season 2014–15 season 2015–16 season 2016–17 season Career Prone position 21 / 30 70.0% 5 / 7 71.4% — — 4 / 5 80.0% 83 / 97 85.6% 977 / 1148 85.1% Standing position 27 / 31 87.1% 5 / 6 83.3% — — 4 / 5 80.0% 81 / 103 78.6% 918 / 1150 79.8% Total 48 / 61 78.7% 10 / 13 76.9% — — 8 / 10 80.0% 164 / 200 82.0% 1895 / 2298 82.5% Results in all IBU World Cup races, Olympics and World Championships including relay events and disqualified races. Statistics as of 8 March 2017.