Katya Galstyan – Cross Country Skiing – Winter Olympics Sochi 2014

Katya Galstyan is an Armenian cross country skier and has been competing in the Cross Country event at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics, Russia. Born in 1993, she is only 21 years old and experiencing her first Olympic Games after making her national team debut at the World Championship in 2013.

Katya Galstyan

Beginnings
Galstyan is a full time student studying Physical Education at the Gyumri State Pedagogical Institute, Armenia. In fact, it was in Gyumri where she first took up the sport in 2008 when she was just fifteen years old. For Galstyan to take up a sport and reach an Olympic standard in just six years is an impressive feat of hard work and endurance. The highlight of her young career came in the 2012 Armenian National Championships which was held in Tsaghkadzor, Armenia where she took the gold medal with a fantastic time.

Talent
It was Slavik Sargsyan, a noted skier himself, who noticed the potential in Galstyan to become a national sporting hero and went on to become her coach and has been developing her abilities ever since.

World Championship
In 2013, Galstyan followed up on her national success by entering the world stage at the World Championships held in Val di Fiemme, Italy and was placed in 91st position posting a time of 4:39.53 in the Classic Sprint. This was a strong performance on the world stage for the then twenty year old skier from Armenia.

10Km Classic
On February 13th Galstyan took to the slopes in Sochi for the Ladies 10Km Classic and posted a time of 35:26.4 which was 7:08.6 off the pace of the race leader and it put her in 64th position overall.

Future
However, for Galstyan to be 64th in the world is an impressive feat for one so young in her first Olympic event and shows her improvement since the World Championships in 2013. Katya Galstyan is clearly one to watch for the future and expect her to a fixture of the Armenian National Team for the 2018 Winter Olympics which is to be held in South Korea.