Penza, 14 March 2014. PenzaNews. A 24-year-old biathlete Svetlana Konovalova, a pupil of orphanage for handicapped children located in Nizhny Lomov, the Penza region, won the gold medal at the Paralympic Games in Sochi.

On Friday, March 14, she won a 12,5 km race sitting.

Silver went to German biathlete Anna Winker. The third place was taken by the representative of Ukraine Olyona Yurkovska.

As news agency PenzaNews reported earlier, Svetlana Konovalova won silver in biathlon races sitting at distances of 6 and 10 km, as well as took bronze in a 12 km ski race.

Svetlana Konovalova was born in the Ryazan region on February 10, 1990.

She was left without parental care due to childbirth spine injury.

The first five years of life she spent in the children's home in Ryazan. Then she was transferred to an orphanage for children with disabilities in Nizhny Lomov, the Penza region.

In 2007, she returned to the Ryazan region to study at the Mikhailovsky Economic College.

She got engaged in table tennis and then became involved in skiing.

It was a chance that brought her to the head coach of Russian Paralympic Team Irina Gromova.

In 2013 she became a multiple winner and winner of World Cup in cross-country skiing and biathlon among athletes with lesions of the musculoskeletal system.