Olga Karasyova
Olga Karasyova, also known as Olga Kovalenko, was a Soviet gymnast who competed in the 1968 Summer Olympics, where she won a gold medal as a member of the Soviet Squad in the team event. Olga was coached by Igor Zhuravlev at CSKA Moscow. She was married to fellow gymnast Valery Karasyov, and studied French at the Pedagogical Institute.
In 1994, it was reported that Karasyova had told German television channel RTL she and her former teammates were forced to participate in abortion doping shortly before the 1968 Olympics, due to the supposed physical benefits of pregnancy. Girls who refused to have sex with their coaches were said to be removed from the team, and after ten weeks, the girls were forced to have an abortion. While rumours of such practices with Soviet, Scandinavian, and East German female gymnasts had been around since the 1950s, no credible evidence had ever been given until Karasyova's apparent disclosure.
Several days later, however, it was discovered the woman who was interviewed was an impostor: Karasyova was actually on a sea cruise at the time, and had watched the broadcast. She sued for libel, and in 2000, the Moscow Ismail Court awarded her 35,000 roubles in damages. Despite her legal victory, the original interviews attributed to her continue to be reported as facts by some third parties.
Karasyova died on 26 October 2025, at the age of 76.