Inessa Kravets

She jumped the world record at the 1995 World Championships in Gothenburg with 15.50 metres after studying a picture of Jonathan Edwards. The following year she won the Olympic gold medal at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, becoming the first ever women’s champion in the triple jump.

She followed this with a gold medal at the first women’s triple jump at the 1993 IAAF World Indoor Championships, but due to a doping ban she did not compete at the debut of the event at the 1993 World Championships in Athletics, where Russia’s Anna Biryukova took the title. In 1994 she won the long jump at the 1994 IAAF World Cup and doubled up at the 1994 European Athletics Championships to take long jump silver and triple jump bronze.

In 1993, Kravets was banned three months for use of stimulants. Kravets was suspended for two years in July 2000 after testing positive for a performance-enhancing steroid.

Born in Dnipropetrovsk, her breakthrough in the triple jump came in 1991 when she broke the world record with a clearance of 14.95 metres in June. Her first major medals came in 1992. At the inaugural appearance of the women’s triple jump at the 1992 European Athletics Indoor Championships she won the gold medal. Later that year at the 1992 Summer Olympics she claimed the long jump silver as part of the Unified Team.

Inessa Mykolajivna Kravets (née Shulyak, Ukrainian: Інесса Миколаївна Кравець ; born 5 October 1966) is a Ukrainian former triple jumper and long jumper. She was among the most prominent female triple jumpers during the period that the event was added to competition programmes at major competitions, and she is the current world record holder, her record is one of the most durable in women’s athletics.