Legends of sports
Tamara, famous Soviet Union speed skater
After World War II had ended, Soviet women started dominating speed skating and would continue do so for at least 20 years. Tamara Rylova was one of them. She trained at Burevestnik in Leningrad. Having debuted nationally at the 1952 Soviet Allround Championships and internationally at the 1954 World Allround Championships, Rylova soon became a force to be reckoned with. Early 1955, Rylova proved this by setting a new world record on the 500 m – breaking Laila Schou Nilsen's record that had stood for almost 18 years. That same month, she would break two more world records.
The next month, she won silver at the 1955 World Allround Championships behind fellow Soviet skater Rimma Zhukova and that already showed that most of the time, Rylova's strongest competition was from other Soviet skaters. The next year, she won bronze, behind two Soviet skaters, thus making all three medals going to the Soviet Union. And this was not an exception, rather it was the rule. In fact, in the years 1953-1964, Soviet women won all three medals at every one of those twelve World Allround Championships.
In 1957 and 1958, Rylova won two more silver medals at the World Allround Championships, both behind Inga Artamonova. Finally, in 1959, she became World Allround Champion, with a big lead over silver medallist Valentina Stenina. The next year, she won yet another silver medal at the 1960 World Allround Championships, this time not being able to retain her lead after three of the four distances because Stenina skated the final distance, the 3,000 m, more than seven seconds faster. At the Winter Olympics of Squaw Valley the next month, Rylova (now the world record holder on the 500 m and the 1,000 m) had a somewhat disappointing performance; she finished fourth on the 500 m, one tenth of a second short of a medal, and she won the bronze medal on the 1,000 m.
After that, Rylova would not make any more international appearances except once, four years later, when she won another bronze medal at the 1964 World Allround Championship. During the intermediate years, she had not won much on a national level. Her last appearance at the Soviet Allround Championships was in 1966.
Lidiya Pavlovna Skoblikova is the most successful Olympic speed skater in terms of Olympic gold medals.
Representing the USSR Olympic team during the Olympic Winter Games in 1960 and 1964, she won a total of six gold medals, still a record number for a speed skater. She also won 25 gold medals at the World Championships and 15 gold medals at the USSR National Championships in several distances. She was also the first athlete to earn six gold medals in the Olympic Winter Games.
Skoblikova was born in Zlatoust, Soviet Union, some 160 km west of Chelyabinsk, Ural. She trained at Burevestnik and later at Lokomotiv sports societies. In 1959, at age 19, Skoblikova qualified for the Soviet World Championships team, placing third in the national championships. She repeated that performance at the World Championships, winning two distance medals as well. The next season, she seemed headed for the World Title after winning the 500 m and placing 2nd in the 1500 m, but she fell in the 1000 m. By winning the final 3000 m, she managed to land on the podium anyway, placing third again. A favourite for the Olympics now, she entered three events. In the first race, the 1500 m, she broke the World Record, and won the gold medal. After just missing a second medal in the 1000 m (fourth), Skoblikova approached the World Record in the 3000 m (missing it by just half a second), but that was enough for her second gold medal.
During the following years, Skoblikova fought with her team mates to become World Champion. In 1961, she won the bronze for the third consecutive time, followed by the silver medal in 1962. In 1963, she finally managed to win the title. In Karuizawa, conditions were excellent, and Skoblikova won all four races, setting a new 1000 m World Record in the process.
For the 1964 Olympics, Skoblikova was qualified for all four distances, and she managed to win all of them, thereby becoming the first Winter Olympian to win four individual gold medals. This record was only beaten by Eric Heiden who won all five speedskating events in 1980. Two weeks after the Olympics, she repeated her performance from Karuizawa and won all four distances at the World Championships.
Skoblikova withdrew from speedskating for two seasons, but returned in 1967, setting a new 3000 m World Record in January. She failed to reach the podium in the World Championships however, and placed fourth. In 1968, she skated her third and last Olympics, but did not win a medal again—the 6th place in the 3000 m was her best ranking. She retired in 1969 after, remarkably, never having won the USSR National Allround Championships—only single distances. In 1983, Skoblikova, then a member of the Soviet National Olympic Committee, received a silver Olympic Order from the hands of Juan Antonio Samaranch.
