Victoria Tereshchuk

Tereshchuk was born on 18 February 1982 in Luhansk, Ukraine.[1] She took up modern pentathlon in 1999[2] and began competing out of ZS Luhansk,[1] where she met her coach Sergey Turobov. Of all the constituent events of modern pentathlon, she considered swimming and the cross-country run to be her specialties and fencing, Turobov's specialty, to be her weakest. She married Turobov in 2005[2] and missed the 2009 season to have a son.[3]

Tereshchuk participated in her first major international competition in August 2001 when she entered the Junior World Championships in Budapest, Hungary and placed 12th. Her first senior World Championship was the 2003 edition, held in Pesaro, Italy, where she finished 27th, and her first senior European Championship came the following month in Ústí nad Labem, Czech Republic, where she came in 34th. She earned her first podium finish in December when she came in second at a World Cup event, followed by her first victory at the Westel World Cup in May 2004. After coming in 6th at the World Championships later that month in Moscow, Russia, her next stop was the 2004 Summer Olympics, where she finished in 7th.[4]

At the next three European Championships, Tereshchuk finished 30th, 18th, and 16th, and placed 12th at the 2005 World Championships in Warsaw, Poland. She claimed her first World Championship medal, silver, at the 2006 edition in Guatemala City, Guatemala, but then dropped to 34th and 26th the following year at the European and World Championships respectively. In 2008, she finished 23rd in the individual and 7th in the three-member team relay events at the 2008 World Championships in Budapest, but became the European Champion at a tournament held in Moscow.[4] This led to her participation in the 2008 Summer Olympics, where she was awarded a bronze medal in the women's event, finishing behind Lena Schöneborn of Germany and Heather Fell of Great Britain.[1][5] She was subsequently stripped of the medal after testing positive for the anabolic steroid turinabol in a doping re-test.[6]

After missing the 2009 season to have a child, Tereshchuk returned in 2010 and finished second in that year's mixed relay event at the World Championships in Chengdu, China, in addition to placing 16th in the individual competition. In 2011, she came in third at the European Championships before winning three medals at the World Championships in Moscow: gold in the individual and mixed relay events and bronze in the three-member team relay.[4] As World Champion, she qualified for the 2012 Summer Olympics, was named Ukrainian Sportswoman of the Year,[7] and was awarded the Order of Princess Olga in the Second Class.[3] At the 2012 World Championships in Rome, Italy, however, she failed to qualify for the finals and was eliminated before she was able to defend her individual title, also placing 5th in the mixed relay.[4] In the Olympic tournament that year she finished 23rd in a field of 36 competitors.[1]