Elena Soboleva





Team Visa CEMEA Hopeful

Date of birth: 03/10/82
Sport: Athletics
Hometown: Bryansk, Russia
Languages: Russian

Achievements to date:

Senior Internationals:

2008
World Indoor Championships, Valencia – 1st
Russian Indoor Championships – 1st

2007
World Athletics Finals, Stuttgart - 1st
World Championships, Osaka - 2nd

2006 World Athletics Finals, Stuttgart - 3rd
World Indoor Championships, Moscow- 2nd

2003 Russian Junior Championship - 1st, 800m
European Junior Championship -7th, 1500m

1998 Russian regional Youth Championship - 1st, 800m 		  Elena Soboleva is a Russian middle distance athlete specialising in the 1500m.

At the age of 6 she started her sports career – she went to the local artistic gymnastics club. It was only in 1996 that she moved to athletics. As a child she ran for fun, until her local athletics coach, Svetlana Belova, convinced her to turn it into a career. Intially the results were poor but two years later she triumphed by winning silver in the Russian regional Junior Championship.

Elena’s obvious talent was so evident that after one of her first international competitions she was invited to the famed Moscow athletics club “Luch”. In 2001, she moved to Moscow and kept on training for the 800m and 1500m with her coach Vladimir Graudyn.

In 2003 she was the 1st in 800m at the Russian Youth Championship and then 7th in the 1500m at the European Youth Championship.

Elena changed her coach in 2004; training with Matvei Telyatnikov resulted in her becoming a member of the Russian youth athletics team. Within a year she entered the senior national team.

In 2006 she set the World indoor 1500m record that still stands today.

June 2007 was very successful with Elena winning races at four consecutive meetings: the Znamensky Memorial (800m – 1:59.49), the Moscow Cup (mile – 4:15.63, 1500m – 3:57.30), Meeting Gaz de France (1500m – 3:59.91) and the Tsiklitiria Grand Prix in Athens (1500m – 3:58.30). The All-Russian Athletics Federation considered such a series to be enough to let Elena miss the national trials for Osaka.

Elena spent the 2007/2008 winter at the Kislovodsk training camp in the South of Russia. The training obviously paid off, as in January she set a new national mile record in Moscow of 4mins 20:21 seconds.

This was followed up by a World Record breaking performance at the Russian Nationals in the 1500m with a time of 3m 58:05. Heading into the World Indoor Championships in Valencia, Elena was under pressure to perform. She didn’t disappoint, by winning in another World Record of 3m 57:71.