Irina Privalova

Irina Anatolyevna Privalova, formerly Sergeyeva, (Russian: Ирина Анатольевна Привалова; born 22 November 1968 in Malakhovka) is a Russian Olympic gold medallist athlete. Her Summer Olympics debut was in 1992 in the sprint events, where she won two medals a bronze in the 100 m and running the anchor leg in the 4 × 100 team, a silver and came fourth in the 200, representing the Unified Team. With three European individual championships and three individual world medals, Irina Privalova had been a formidable competitor during most of the 1990s (see Sprints) but had not yet won an outdoor international event gold medal (as an individual athlete, she had won relay gold in 1993). In 2000, she switched to the 400 m hurdles discipline winning the gold medal in 53.02 s (see 400 m Hurdles) and a bronze in the 4 × 400 m relay team for Russia.

Irina Privalova is currently the world indoor record holder in the 50 m (5.96 s) and 60 m (6.92 s) sprints (See World Indoor Records). She has also been the world indoor champion at the 60 m (7.02 s in 1991), 200 m (22.15 s in 1993), and 400 m (50.23 s in 1995) events the first athlete to win titles, indoors or outdoors, at three different distances. Privalova achieved her best time (10.77 s) in the 100 m in 1994 – the fastest time for nine years. In 2008, aged 39, she reached the semi-finals of the 100 m at Russian championships in attempting to qualify for her fourth Olympics.

She had tried moving to the 800 m to qualify for the 2004 Olympics. In 2020, Privalova stood for the presidency of the Russian Athletics Federation. She failed to win but became vice-president. She later was called to stand-in as acting president when the elected president moved to a government agency (See Russian Athletic Federation Presidency).