Biography of Irina Merleni


Irina Alekseevna Merleni – Ukrainian athlete, Olympic champion in freestyle wrestling in the category of lightest weight. At birth, he had the surname Melnik. Irina Merleni was born on February 8, 1982 in the city of Kamenetz-Podolsky Khmelnitsky region. She won the main victories in her biography Irina Merleni in the weight category up to 48 kg, although for a while she moved to another category – 51 kg. The height of the athlete is 150 cm. At the Beijing Olympics 2008 Merleni will join the traditional weight category of 48 kg. Having recently given birth to a son, she recovered and began to weigh 53 kg.

Irina Merleni is a member of the sports club “Biola”. Married to the master of sports in freestyle wrestling Andrey Mikulchin from February 18, 2006. Irina took her husband’s surname, but at the competitions she appears under the more familiar name for the fans Merleni.

To engage in wrestling, the sportswoman began at the age of 15 thanks

to her brother Alexei, who took her classes, became the first coach and rival. Then she entered the school of physical culture in the city of Lviv. I went to Greece hoping to find better conditions for training. In the biography of Irina Merleni there are unknown facts. So, for example, until the end it is not clear why the athlete took the name of Merleni. According to the champion, it was required to represent Greece in the competition. Irina was shot in the television show “Patriots Games”, where she also showed her strength and skill.

Train Merleni Alexei Melnik and Ruslan Savlokhov, both are well-deserved coaches of Ukraine.

As a child, the sportswoman was engaged in music school for 5 years, plays violin, piano, and is fond of singing. Closely communicates with popular pop stars. Having won the vocal competition “Karaoke-ring” among other Ukrainian sportsmen, she was even more interested in the idea of ​​developing her vocal data. In addition, Irina participated in the television project “Songs with the Stars.”

During the entire biography of Irina Merleni,

a large number of titles were won. Immediately after the inclusion of freestyle wrestling in the Olympics, she became the first champion. The athlete is a three times world champion, twice champion of Europe. And of course, an important achievement is to obtain the title of Olympic champion in Athens in 2004. For the gold medal in Athens, Irina was presented with a one-room apartment in Kiev. In addition to these merits, Merleni repeatedly won in the championships of Ukraine.

Responsible, strong-willed, of course, a professional athlete, Irina Merleni was twice nominated by the International Wrestling Federation as “a woman’s face of free-style wrestling”.


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Biography of Irina Merleni