Tatyana Ovechkina
From Hoopedia
Tatiana Nikolaevna Ovechkina (Russian: Татьяна Николаевна Овечкина; maiden name: Kabayeva) (born March 19, 1950) is a former Soviet Russian basketball player who played for the Soviet national team that won two Olympic gold medals, the 1975 FIBA World Championship for Women and six European Championships. Today, she runs the Russian national women's 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, Tatiana joined Dynamo Moscow's women's basketball team, soon became its star, and at 19, 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 World University Games.
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.
Ovechkina is the mother of NHL ice hockey superstar Alexander Ovechkin. She currently holds a controlling stake in the company and holds all rights to her son's contract negotiations. She was able to lock up her son to a 10-year 7 million contract with the Capitals. She is very involved in contract negotiations with her son.
Tatiana Ovechkina has been nominated for induction into the FIBA Hall of Fame by the Russian Basketball Federation.
