Hanna Huskova

Sports: Freestyle skiing (aerials)

Born: 28 August 1992

Birthplace: Minsk, Belarus

Honors:

Honored Master of Sport of the Republic of Belarus

Order of the Fatherland 3rd Class, 2018

Career highlights:

Gold (aerials), Olympic Games in PyeongChang, 2018

Second, Freestyle World Cup standings (aerials), 2017-2018

Silver, FIS Freestyle Junior World Ski Championships, 2012

First, Freestyle European Cup standings (aerials) 2008-2009

Biography:

The future Olympic champion was born in Minsk in 1992. As a child, Hanna Huskova attended a gymnastics class, but at the age of seven she took up aerial skiing. The girl was trained by famous coach Vladimir Dashchinski, the father of Dmitri Dashchinski, the Olympic medalist of the 1998 Olympic Games in Nagano and the 2006 Olympic Games in Turin. Under her second coach Yuri Kupratsevich the fledgling athlete won her first medals at junior events.

In 2005, Hanna Huskova joined Belarus national freestyle team as an adult athlete and made her international debut at the open championship of Russia.

Since 2006, she participated in many European Cup events. She topped the Freestyle European Cup standings (aerials) in the 2008-2009 season. In 2009, the athlete debuted at the World Cup stage in Moscow, where she became 24th. At the 2009 World Championships Hanna Huskova finished 14th. Two years later, at the 2011 FIS Freestyle World Ski Championships in Deer Valley, she was 9th, and in 2015 she improved her standing and became 5th. In 2012, she clinched silver at the Freestyle Junior World Ski Championships in Italy.

Hanna Huskova made her Olympic debut at the Sochi Olympics in 2014. Back then the International Ski Federation allocated 2 additional Olympic spots to Belarus’ female athletes, but Hanna Huskova did not come through the qualification round, finishing the competitions in the 21st position.

On 31 January 2015 she won bronze at the 2015-2016 FIS Freestyle Skiing World Cup stage in Lake Placid for the first World Cup podium in her career.

The athlete twice suffered severe injuries (meniscus injury and anterior cruciate ligament rupture) and had a titanium screw inserted into her knee. Due to the injuries, Hanna Huskova almost completely missed the 2016-2017 World Cup season.

The athlete began the 2017-2018 Olympic season on a high note. She was victorious at the World Cup stage in China, and at the end of the season she was second only to China’s Xu Mengtao in the Aerials standings.

At the PyeongChang Olympics in 2018, Hanna Huskova made it to the final after the first qualifying attempt, and in the big final she put her best jump to score 96.14 points and win an Olympic gold.

In an interview after her triumphant performance at the Olympics, Hanna Huskova said that she dedicated the winning jump to her father.

In addition to aerials, the girl is fond of sewing clothes and loves tattoos. As a child, she dreamed of becoming a journalist, photographer or an actress.