Olha Bryzhina

Career

She trained at Dynamo in Voroshilovgrad. Competing in the 400 metres and 4 x 400 metres relay, she was a particularly successful Olympian with three gold medals and one silver. At the 1988 Olympics the Soviet relay team set a new world record of 3:15.17 minutes which is still unbeaten (as of 2012). Bryzhina also became world champion in 1987.

Bryzhina successfully defeated Florence Griffith Joyner at the 1988 Seoul Olympics in the 4 × 400 m relay. Both runners ran the final leg of the relay and took the baton at about the same time. "Flo-Jo" ran a well paced race, chasing Bryzhina closely, and tried to challenge Bryzhina at the 300m point. However, the challenge from Flo-Jo was unsuccessful and Bryzhina won by a 4m margin, taking gold for the Soviet Union along with a new world record for the USSR team. Bryzhina's time of 47.7 seconds in the 1988 Olympic relay is one of the fastest relay legs ever run by a woman in the history of track and field.

Bryzhina's 400m personal best of 48.27 seconds is the women's 4th best result of all time in a laned 400m race. She achieved this in the same race that Marita Koch set the current 400m world record of 47.60 seconds on 6 October 1985 at the Bruce Stadium in Canberra (Australia).

Bryzhina's husband Viktor Bryzhin was also a champion track athlete, winning gold in the 4 × 100 m relay event at the 1988 Olympics. Together they have a daughters, Yelizaveta Bryzhina and Anastasiia Bryzgina, who are also a successful track runners (competing for Ukraine).

Bryzhina and her daughter Yelizaveta both had a best performance of 22.44 seconds over 200m as of December 2012.

Personal bests