Tatyana Ovechkina

Tatyana Nikolaevna Ovechkina (Russian: Татьяна Николаевна Овечкина; maiden name: Kabayeva) (born 19 March 1950); is a former Soviet Russian basketball player who played for a national team that won two Olympic gold medals, the 1975 World Championships and six European Championships. Today, she runs the Russia women's national basketball program.

Ovechkina was born in Moscow. At age 7, she was walking home from school when an automobile struck her and mangled her right leg. She spent a year in the hospital recovering. At 16, Tatyana joined Dynamo Moscow's women's basketball team and soon became its star. At age 19, she was named captain of the national team.

Ovechkina won two Olympic gold medals with the USSR team, in 1976 and 1980, and never lost a game in an official international competition. She also won the 1975 World Championship, six European Championships (1970, 1972, 1974, 1976, 1978, 1980), and the 1977 Summer Universiade.

She was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honor in 1976 and the Order of Friendship of Peoples in 1980. In recent years, she was overwhelmingly chosen the century's best female point guard by the readers of the Sport-Express, an Eastern European daily newspaper. Currently, she is a candidate for inducation into the FIBA Hall of Fame.

Tatyana is the mother of professional ice hockey winger Alexander Ovechkin, who plays in the NHL for the Washington Capitals. He was selected 1st overall in the 2004 NHL Entry Draft. He won the Hart Trophy as the league's most valuable player in 2008, 2009 and 2013.