Prokofieva, Marina Sergeevna

Marina Prokofieva was born on February 4, 1982 in the city of Mariupol, Donetsk Region, Ukrainian SSR . She began to actively engage in judo from early childhood, was trained in Dnepropetrovsk in the local sports society "Dynamo" under the guidance of coaches Danil Abramovich Volovich and Nikolai Petrovich Yashchuk.

She achieved her first serious success at an adult international level in 2000 when she became a member of the Ukrainian national team and, thanks to a series of successful performances, won the right to defend the honor of the country at the Summer Olympics in Sydney . Nevertheless, already in the starting bout of the heavy weight category gave way to German Sandra Köppen . In the consolation tournament, too, lost in the first match of the first opponent.

In 2004, Prokofieva won a heavyweight gold medal at the European Championships in Bucharest and won silver in the absolute weight category at a separate European championship in Budapest. Being among the leaders of the judo team of Ukraine, she successfully passed the qualification for the Olympic Games in Athens . This time she won the starting bout, after which she was defeated by the Japanese Maki Tsukada at the quarter-finals stage, who eventually became the Olympic champion. In the consolation tournament, she passed two rivals and lost in the decisive match to titled Chinese woman Sun Fumin , thus taking fifth place in the final protocol.

At the 2005 European Championships in Rotterdam, Holland, Prokofyeva won a bronze medal. At two subsequent European championships, in Tampere and Belgrade, respectively, both times stopped at the fifth position. Later I went to represent the country at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing , where she lost both her fights - first she was knocked out of the main tournament grid by Chinese woman Tong Wen , then in the consolation tournament she was defeated by Russian Tea Donguzashvili ^[1] .

After the unsuccessful Beijing Olympics, Marina Prokofieva remained in the main team of the Ukrainian national team and continued to take part in major international regattas. So, in 2009, she took the seventh place at the European Championships in Tbilisi, and in 2010 won a victory at the World Cup stage in Cairo. The last time showed any significant results in the international arena in the season of 2011, when, winning the Ukrainian national championship in the absolute weight category, entered the top ten at the World Cup in Prague, Almaty and Minsk. In 2012, in the Ukrainian Championship in Donetsk, she took only fifth place in the open weight and soon after the end of these competitions she decided to end her career as a professional athlete, giving way to the team of young Ukrainian judo players. For outstanding sporting achievements awarded the honorary title " Master of Sports of Ukraine of international class ."

• Marina Prokofieva - page on the site of the Judo Federation of Ukraine
• Marina Prokofieva - Olympic statistics on the website Sports-Reference.com (English)
• Marina Prokofieva - profile on judoinside.com (English)