Iryna Kurachkina

Kurachkina competed in the women's 51 kg event at the 2013 World Wrestling Championships held in Budapest, Hungary.^[2] In March 2016, she won the silver medal in the women's 53 kg event at the European Wrestling Championships held in Riga, Latvia.^[3] The next month, Kurachkina competed in the qualification tournament held in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia hoping to qualify for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.^[4] She did not advance far as she was eliminated in her first match.^[4]

At the 2017 World U23 Wrestling Championship held in Bydgoszcz, Poland, she won the silver medal in the women's 55 kg event.^[5] Kurachkina also won one of the bronze medals in the women's 55 kg event at the 2017 World Wrestling Championships held in Paris, France.^[6] In 2018, she competed in the women's freestyle event of the 2018 Wrestling World Cup. A few months later, Kurachkina won the gold medal in the women's 55 kg event at the 2018 European Wrestling Championships held in Kaspiysk, Dagestan, Russia.^[7] Later that year, she competed in the women's 57 kg event at the 2018 World Wrestling Championships held in Budapest, Hungary where she was eliminated in her first match.^[8]

At the 2019 European Games held in Minsk, Belarus, Kurachkina won the gold medal in the women's 57 kg event.^[9][10] In the final, she defeated Mimi Hristova of Bulgaria.^[9] At the 2019 World Wrestling Championships held in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, Kurachkina won one of the bronze medals in the women's 57 kg event.^[11][12] She qualified at this competition to represent Belarus at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan.^[13]

In 2020, Kurachkina won the gold medal by defeating Annika Wendle of Germany in the final of the women's 55 kg event at the Individual Wrestling World Cup held in Belgrade, Serbia.^[14][15] In 2021, she won the gold medal in the 57 kg event at the European Wrestling Championships held in Warsaw, Poland.^[16][17] A few months later, Kurachkina won the silver medal in her event at the 2021 Poland Open held in Warsaw, Poland.^[18][19]

With a bronze medal and a third place win at the 2019 World Wrestling Championships, Kurachkina qualified for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics as the number #3 seed. In Kurachkina's Olympic debut, she defeated, reigning Asian Champion, India's Anshu Malik by the score 8-2 after going all six-minutes; Kurachkina then went on to win 6-3 over 2016 Olympic Silver medalist, Valeria Koblova, representing the ROC, which would give Kurachkina a place in the semi-final.^[20] Opposing Kurachkina in the semi-final was unseeded Evelina Nikolova, who Kurachkina defeated by 11-0 technical superiority.

In 2022, she won one of the bronze medals in the 57 kg event at the Yasar Dogu Tournament held in Istanbul, Turkey.^[21]

Kurachkina won the gold medal in the 57 kg event at the 2024 European Wrestling Championships held in Bucharest, Romania.^[22][23] In the final, she defeated Evelina Nikolova of Bulgaria.^[23] She competed at the 2024 European Wrestling Olympic Qualification Tournament in Baku, Azerbaijan and she earned a quota place for the Individual Neutral Athletes for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, France.^[24]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Iryna Kurachkina.

• Iryna Kurachkina at United World Wrestling
• Iryna Kurachkina at the International Wrestling Database
• Iryna Kurachkina at Olympics.com
• Iryna Kurachkina at Olympedia