Lina Cheryazova

As of 2013, Lina Cheryazova is the only Uzbekistani athlete to win a Winter Olympic medal. As a youth, Cheryazova did gymnastics and trampolining and took up freestyle skiing in 1987. Cheryazova débuted at the World Cup circuit in December 1989 and soon rose to be the top female aerialist in the World at the start of 90s. Cheryazova was World Champion in 1993 and won gold at the 1994 Olympics. She won bronze at the 1990 European Championships and was also the aerials overall World Cup winner in the 1992-93 (winning six out of eight races) and 1993-94 seasons (winning six out of 11 races). Shortly after winning her 1994 gold medal, Cheryazova was told that her mother had died three weeks earlier, from injuries she had sustained in an industrial accident. Her mother had specifically asked that her daughter not be told so she concentrate on the competition.

In the summer of 1994, Cheryazova fractured her skull during training and was in a coma for more than a month. After more than a year of recovery, Cheryazova returned to sport in the autumn of 1995, but never returned to her previous level, and after another injury sustained after the 1998 Winter Olympics, retired from sports. Later, Cheryazova worked as a freestyle skiing coach in Uzbekistan and Russia and worked as a deputy sports director of the National Bank of Uzbekistan. She also heads her own non-profit foundation Olympic Champion Lina Cheryazova, that promotes freestyle skiing in the former Soviet Union.