Olena Paholchik was born in Kazakhstan and moved to Belarus in 1970.
Since childhood she took part in various sports and showed a special facility for
basketball.
She was invited to enrol in Physical Education at the Minsk Institute in
1982 and chose to specialize in basketball. She graduated in 1986. While at the Institute,
she began to compete in basketball at the national level.
After an invitation to go sailing in 1985, became interested in the
sport and gradually devoted more and more time to sailing.
Following the Seoul Olympics, Viktor Kovalenko, coach of the USSR team,
asked Paholchik to train and compete with Larysa Moskalenko of Dnipropetrovsk in class
"470". This was an honour and a wonderful opportunity for Paholchik since
Moskalenko won a bronze medal at the Seoul Olympics.
In 1990 Paholchik married a fellow class "470" sailor and
moved with him to Kyiv.
Paholchik and Moskalenko won a gold medal at the 1991 World
Championships in the USA and as well as a silver in Australia.
At the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, Paholchik and Moskalenko were in second
place going into the final race. They fell behind in that race and had to settle for 4th
place over-all. The pre-Olympic period and the Olympics were extremely stressful for the
athletes. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia confiscated the best sailboats
and equipment. As a result, Paholchik and her partner were forced to train and compete
with inferior equipment.
1993 was a transitional year for Paholchik. She bore a child, and her
sailing partner Moskalenko moved to Italy. In 1995 Paholchik resumed training, and with
her new partner Ruslana Taran won a gold medal at the European Championships and a silver
at the World Championships.
