February 10, 1991 The last Soviet champion On December 25, 1991, at 7:32 p.m., the red flag with hammer and sickle descended from the tall towers of the Kremlin. This moment symbolized the end of the Soviet Union. This country which, with its 22 million km2, these some 300 million inhabitants, a very structured sports organization with significant resources as well as an institutionalized doping system had dominated for nearly a half -th century world sport. The USSR won 1,204 medals at the Olympic Games, from 1952 to 1988. The last medalist athlete wearing the Soviet colors was cross-country skier Eleva Välbe - seen in this photo at the World Championships in the discipline, in February 1991 during his success in the classic 15 km. Indeed, Välbe won the World Cup in Thunder Bay, Canada, on December 14, 1991. Fate will dictate that she is also the first sportswoman to triumph under her new colors, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). . Välbe was going, in fact, to win a stage of the World Cup of cross-country skiing on January 4, 1992 in Kavgolovo, about thirty kilometers from the city which had, after referendum, abandoned the name of Leningrad to regain its historical name of St. Petersburg. It was under the colors of the CEI that she also won at the Albertville Olympic Games the following month five Olympic medals, including gold in the relay. A title that she will keep with her teammates at the Lillehammer Olympics in 1994 and Nagano in 1998, but this time with the Russia jersey. Elena Välbe therefore obtained medals with three different countries. Now, at 53, she is the president of the controversial Russian Cross-Country Skiing Federation. l JEAN-CHRISTOPHE COLLIN
