Real basketball stars are born once in a hundred years. So claimed the great coach Alexander Gomelsky. The Russians observe the life of one of them at the turn of two centuries. The unique athlete played equally well both at the end of the 20th century and at the beginning of the 21st, becoming the most titled basketball player in the world. Extraordinarily feminine and coordinated with a height of 192 cm, an excellent wife and mother of two children, with all the sports excitement fighting injustice and fearlessly criticizing the state of affairs in modern basketball - this is what Elena Baranova, the legend of domestic basketball, faces the fans.
Athlete Biography: Beginning
In 1972, the daughter Elena was born in the family of Tatyana Alexandrovna and Viktor Stepanovich in Frunze (modern Bishkek). Few people know that she grew up a weak girl. And in her five years she suffered Botkin's disease. Since then, a strict diet is its constant companion in life. Perhaps this was what made her unusually organized in the future. The first coach in basketball was Elena Russky, who noticed a girl’s early talent for the game and six months later put her against rivals of the older age group.
The local Stroitel team, playing in the first league of the USSR championship, became the first professional club of Elena, where she was accepted at the age of 16. Her confident throws in the basket ensured participation in the main games in which the athlete brought the team 7 points per match. She was thin in complexion and jumping. In training, she laid a volleyball in a basket from above. High jump trainers spotted her, but Elena Baranova remained faithful to her favorite game. By the way, in the professional career, the athlete will not have top throws, which is associated with a serious injury. Otherwise, this element of basketball could be observed in women as early as the 20th century.
Finest hour
From the age of 17, the athlete began to be attracted to the national team. And Elena accepted the invitation of the Moscow Dynamo to be constantly in the capital. The first coach to play a huge role in professional development was Yevgeny Gomelsky, who believed in her talent. He is still considered the number one professional in women's basketball, under whose leadership the team reached the main peak - the Olympic gold medals in 1992. There are no more awards of this level in her asset. In the semifinals, the girls defeated the United States (79:73), leaving the four from second place. The success in the final against China with a score of 76:66 was grand for all of Russian basketball.
Elena by that time had already fixed herself in the main team, having celebrated a victory in the European Championship a year earlier, which testifies to the nonrandom character of the triumph in Barcelona. In the final game of the European Championship against Yugoslavia, a young nineteen-year-old basketball player brought 10 points to the team. Elena Baranova already in 1992 receives the title of Honored Master of Sports of the USSR.
Main team in a career
Over 22 seasons in big sports, an outstanding basketball player will change many clubs. But six years spent at CSKA will make this team the main one in Baranova’s career. After the Olympics, Gomelsky is invited to the Israeli "Epicure". And Elena Baranova rushes after the coach, becoming the champion of Israel with the team. Upon completion of the contract, their paths diverged. He began to train Dynamo, and Elena continued her career at CSKA.
She, a famous basketball player, did not immediately prove her right to play in the top five, but later admitted that the then CSKA coach Anatoly Myshkin taught all the basic tricks, including playing back-to-back games. Here she acquired that necessary universality, which will allow her to play equally successfully in the future as any player, and not just in her main position - the center. She turned into a real professional with unique thinking and vision of the site, which allowed her to receive the title of the most valuable player at the 1998 World Cup and enter the symbolic world team in 2002.
WNBA: the first of the Russians
Baranova Elena, for whom basketball will become a professional work of life, will forever go down in history as the first athlete from Russia to fall into the overseas league. This happened in January 1997, when she signed a contract with Utah Stars. Although the team was not strong, Elena was able to demonstrate her personality by becoming the best in the league championship in block shots and setting a record in one of the matches for scored three-point shots (7 out of 9).
In all over the ocean in different years she spent seven seasons. It was operated on after an injury received in the game for the Turkish Fenerbahçe team, which made it impossible for her to participate in the 2000 Olympics. After the operation, she returned to sports, taking her first steps in the Miami Sol, becoming the best in the league in free throws and receiving an invitation to the All-Star Game. No other athlete from Russia sought such a right.
Ronaldo, the great footballer, had undergone a similar operation with Elena at the time. This completed his triumphant career. The girl remained in sports, continuing to play for more than ten years, only overseas repeatedly becoming a finalist and semi-finalist of the Eastern League Conference.
Baranova Elena: interesting biography facts
In 1998, after a break, the women's basketball team was again headed by Yevgeny Gomelsky, with whom the team takes second place in the World Cup, and Baranova is recognized as the best player in Europe. But in CSKA things went wrong. Therefore, the athlete, forced to look for a new club, decided to play for the men's team "Bisons" (Mytishchi), with whom she trained for the last year. In order not to lose athletic shape and realize your main dream - compare the level of men's and women's basketball. In 1999, as a light forward for men, she played four matches in the official tournament of the Moscow Region, already in the first match she received 15 minutes of playing time and scored five points. This is a unique case in the history of basketball.
Baranova Elena has a difficult character, not embarrassed to express her opinion to anyone. In her professional biography there is a fact of the trial, where she defended her right to terminate the contract and not play for the UMMC team. She trained in it since November 2001. Having become a silver medalist of the European and world championships under the leadership of Vadim Kapranov, the athlete was not satisfied with the situation inside the Russian team. Her players had a conflict with the main manager - Shabtay Kalmanovich, as a result of which several people completed their sports careers. Baranova did not want to finish her. Therefore, she won the right to play for another team, winning the court.
Ending a sports career
Time has no power over the athlete: in the XXI century, her career continued in the WNBA, from 2002 to 2004 she was the captain of the Russian team. Three times I became the champion of the country (only six titles) in the UMMC. The birth of children in 2006, only a year and a half, suspended her career in sports, although she began to train four months after giving birth. Another coach appeared in her life, to whom she is infinitely grateful - Boris Sokolovsky. But in 2008 she was no longer invited to the national team for a trip to the Beijing Olympics, where the national team took third place, considering that her time had passed.
Elena Baranova ended her career in the Vologda-Chevakat team in 2012, before speaking for “Hope” (Orenburg), which helped her out of the middle peasants to get into third place in Russia. On the eve of the 2012 Olympics, as a result of Maria Stepanova ’s injury, the team was without a central center player. Baranova offered her services, but Boris Sokolovsky, the national team coach, did not use her help. Who knows, maybe the participation of an outstanding athlete could change the situation and raise the team above its fourth place.
The legend of Russian basketball
Baranova Elena is the most titled athlete in the entire history of basketball. A real museum has been created in her house, where all her awards are stored. In addition to the Olympic medal, which she especially appreciates and protects. Especially after the story of the theft of the award from Vitaliy Fridzon. She does not hide the fact that the rest of the medals do not represent value to her, more important are the titles that she wears. The silver medal of the 1998 World Cup, when the team stopped a step away from victory, is considered the most bitter award. The athlete is also proud of, in addition to the Olympic, the medal of the Order for Merit to the Fatherland, received in 2007, and a letter of thanks from President Putin testifying to the important role that sport plays in society.
Personal life
For so long, Elena was helped by the help of her mother, who, after giving birth to children, actively participated in their upbringing. The basketball player in 2006 gave birth to twins Masha and Misha, with whose father, Gulyaev Borislav Alexandrovich, they registered a relationship on the eve of childbirth. Prior to this, the couple lived in a civil marriage for eight years. The spouse has a professional attitude to sports and is simultaneously engaged in real estate business.
After graduating, Elena Baranova, whose pupils can be seen in the article, heads the basketball department at the Olympic Reserve School. Alexander Gomelsky. Her life is an example of real service to her beloved work, which brought her world fame.