Galina Vecherkovskaya

Galina Yanovna Vecherkovskaya (also Putyrskaya, Russian: Галина Яновна Вечерковская (Путырская), born 27 June 1926) is a Soviet retired rower who won five European titles between 1955 and 1962.[1][2][3]

Galina Vecherkovskaya

Personal information
Born	27 June 1926 (1926-06-27) (age 97) Leningrad, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Sport
Sport	Rowing
Medal record Representing the  Soviet Union European Rowing Championships 1955 Bucharest Coxed four 1956 Bled Coxed four 1959 Mâcon Quad sculls 1961 Prague Double sculls 1962 East Berlin Double sculls

Vecherkovskaya was born in Leningrad, but during World War II her family lived in Ryazan Oblast. Her father, Jan Kazimirovich, was an engineer who was executed during the Great Purge in late 1930s. Vecherkovskaya started training in rowing in 1947, when she enrolled to the Lesgaft Institute of Physical Education (GDOIFK). She graduated in 1951 and until 1984 lectured at GDOIFK; after that, between 1984 and 1997 she worked as a physician at a city hospital for children. Around 1948 Vecherkovskaya married her coach, Kirill Putyrsky, and for some time competed under his name as Galina Putyrskaya; they divorced around 1960.[1][2]

Before the 1955 European Championships, Vecherkovskaya and her partner Olimpiada Mikhaylova were medal favorites in double sculls. However, two rowers of the Soviet coxed four became pregnant, and to save the team Vecherkovskaya and Mikhailova were merged into the coxed four that resulted in a gold medal.[1]