Nadezhda Tkachenko

Ukrainian Nadezhda Tkachenko, who took up athletics when she was already 18-years-old, was one of the top pentathletes of the world in the 1970s. Tkachenko won the 1980 Olympic gold with a world record 5,083 points, thus becoming the first and only pentathlete to break 5,000 points as the IAAF replaced the pentathlon with the heptathlon in 1981. Tkachenko also competed at the 1972 and 1976 Olympics, placing ninth and fifth respectively.

At the European Championships, Tkachenko won gold in 1974, but failed a doping test at the 1978 Europeans and was disqualified, after having placed first. Tkachenko also won gold at the 1973 Universiade and the 1977 European Cup Combined Events. In addition to the world record set at the 1980 Olympics, she set one other world record – 4,839 in 1977. She won Soviet titles in 1973-75 and 1978, adding national silvers in 1971, 1972 and 1976 and a bronze in 1977. Tkachenko finished her sports career after the 1980 Olympics and later worked as a children’s coach in Donetsk, Ukraine.

Personal Bests: Pen76 – 4776 (1974); Pen89 – 5083 (1980).