Athlete profile: Larissa Lazutina

Posted: Tue February 3, 1998 at 5:00 PM ET

Athlete notes

If ever a world champion lived in international anonymity, it is Lazutina...her countrywomen Yelena Vaelbe has become the standard bearer in women's cross-country...while former teammate Lyubov Yegorova stirred controversy from her banishment in Trondheim for doping...but once in her career Lazutina has captured the limelight and she may do so again in Nagano...at the 1995 World Championships in Thunder Bay, Canada, Lazutina bagged three individual gold medals and led the Russians to a championship in the relay...no competitor was as ready to race for each Events as Lazutina was that year...too bad for Lazutina, that the Winter Olympics did not keep their old schedule, because it seemed she was peaking at right about the 1995 and 1996 winter seasons...since her dominance at those '95 Championships, Lazutina's results have tapered off somewhat, though she remains a threat and is a valuable member of the relay team...at the 1997 World Championships in Trondheim, Lazutina skied the second leg during the Russian's gold-medal performance...but she is probably better known for what happened in the 30 km classic...labeled as the worst collapse of the whole championship fortnight, Lazutina lost more than 20 seconds over the last four kilometers of easy terrain and was edged out by Norway's Marit Mikkelsplass for the bronze...there are other things in life for Larissa besides cross-country skiing...Lazutina, like Vaelbe and teammate Nina Gavriljuk, interrupted her career to have a baby...after winning the World Cup title in 1990, Lazutina remained in the Soviet Union to have her daughter, Alisa...although she resurfaced for the Albertville Olympics, Lazutina's best result in an individual Events was fifth place in the 30 km freestyle...she was a member of the Unified Team's gold medal relay..."Yelena came back very strong from childbirth, very quickly," says Lazutina. "Perhaps it took me a little longer"...Larissa's husband of 10 years, Gennady Lazutin, is a six-time world junior champion in cross-country whose career has been stymied by a series of maladies...he missed a few seasons on the World Cup circuit, but rejoined the team in time for Lillehammer, where he placed 15th in the 30 km free and was the third leg on the men's relay team...it is hard for the Lazutin family in the winter, Gennady and Larissa do not see each other that often and Larissa does not spend much time with Alisa from October until April...during the World Cup season, Larissa's mother takes care of Alisa..."Alisa is like her mother," laughs Larissa. "She is not very calm, and she is very tough on a babysitter. My mother has gotten thinner from working so hard"...Lazutina grew up in Petrozavodsk, a city in the Karelia region of western Russia...formerly property of Finland, the Karelia region was annexed by the Russian empire centuries ago...now, with the fall of Communism, Lazutina finds "more and more people studying Finnish, especially among the children and business people"...as a child, Larissa attended music school for two years learning the piano...the predominant sport in the region was cross-country, and her first two coaches convinced Larissa's parents that their child should devoted her time to cross-country ...as a 21 year-old, Larissa won a bronze at her first World Championships in 1987, but she missed the 1988 Calgary Olympics because of illness...Larissa does not speak English...