Ludmila Engquist

Ludmila Engquist

Medal record
Women’s Athletics
Representing  Sweden
Olympic Games
	1996 Atlanta	100 m hurdles
World Championships
Representing the  Soviet Union
	1991 Tokyo	100 m hurdles
Representing  Sweden
	1997 Athens	100 m hurdles
	1999 Seville	100 m hurdles
World Indoor Championships
Representing the  Soviet Union
	1991 Seville	60 m hurdles
	1989 Budapest	60 m hurdles

Ludmila Engquist (born Ludmila Viktorovna Leonowa (Russian: Людмила Викторовна Нарожиленко-Леонова); 21 April 1964 in Tambov Oblast, Soviet Union) is a former Soviet/Russian/Swedish athlete who competed in the 1988 Summer Olympics (for the Soviet Union), in the 1992 Summer Olympics (for the Unified Team), and in the 1996 Summer Olympics (for Sweden).

Biography

During her first marriage her name was Ludmila Narozhilenko, and this is the name she competed under whilst competing for the Soviet Union and Russia. In 1995 she married Swedish businessman Johan Engquist and in 1996 she became a Swedish citizen. She won gold medals in 100 m hurdles at the 1991 World Championships (for the Soviet Union) and 1997 World Championships as well as the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta (both for Sweden). For her 1997 victory in Athens, Engquist received the Svenska Dagbladet Gold Medal, the first non-native Swede to win this award. During these years she became one of the most popular woman athletes of Sweden and was sometimes dubbed a role model for younger native Swedish talents.

In 1999 Engquist was diagnosed with breast cancer. After surgery she stopped chemotherapy after 4 treatments because she did not want the drugs to interfere with her athletic career, and successfully returned to the track.

After a distinguished athletic career she retired from running but wanted to become the first woman ever to win gold medals at both the Summer and Winter Olympics, by competing in and winning the inaugural two-woman bobsleigh event at the 2002 Winter Olympics. In late 2001, however, she was found guilty of having recently used banned drugs and barred from competition for two years. Her admission of drug use, though only during the recent part of her bobsleigh effort, made her a very controversial person in Sweden and considering that she had tested positive for banned drugs once before, during her days as a Soviet runner, and had sustained a ban (which was appealed and lifted after a while) some alleged that she had been using performance-enhancing substances regularly all the time, a claim for which there is no evidence. The penalty term ended in December 2003, but Engquist has not returned to competition since then.

She currently lives in Spain with her husband Johan Engquist.

External links

• Ludmila Engquist profile at IAAF
• Biography
• Over hurdles on to ice (News article in The Observer)
• Her Biggest Hurdle