Zoya Mironova

Zoya Mironova

Zoya Mironova in the 1930s
Personal information
Born	10 May 1913 Moscow, Russia
Died	4 May 2008 (aged 94) Moscow, Russia
Sport
Sport	Speed skating
Club	Medik Moscow

Zoya Sergeyevna Mironova (née Noskova, Russian: Зоя Сергеевна Миронова, 10 May 1913 – 4 May 2008) was a Russian speed skater and sports physician, one of the founders of the sports traumatology in the Soviet Union. She was the head surgeon of the Soviet Olympic team between 1952 and 1976, and personally operated Olympic champions including Valentin Muratov, Sofia Muratova, Yury Vlasov, Alexander Yakushev and Aleksandr Karshakevich.

Mironova took up speed skating aged six. In 1933–34 she won the Soviet all-around speed skating title, and set a few national records. Her skating career went downhill in 1935 when she entered the I.M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University and devoted herself to medicine.

She had her first field experience with sports injuries in 1938, when she worked as a doctor at an intercity cycling road race. The same year she injured her knee before the Soviet speed skating championships. While recovering from surgery she decided to become a sports surgeon herself. Her plans were interrupted by World War II, during which she operated wounded soldiers in Moscow. Based on that extensive five-year experience, in 1946 she defended a PhD on the hip surgery after a gun wound.

In 1951, when the Soviet Union became member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), was appointed as the head physician of the Soviet Olympic team. He selected his assistants among former athletes such as Mironova. For political reasons, neither Priorov nor Mironova were allowed to travel abroad. The ban on Mironova was lifted only in 1956, when she presented a report on Achilles tendon surgeries at an international sports medicine conference in Luxembourg. She later attended the 1956 Summer Olympics as the head surgeon for the Soviet team.