Yuliya Kanakina is a Russian skeleton racer who competes on the Skeleton World Cup circuit. She is the IBSF Junior World Champion in women’s skeleton for 2017 in Sigulda, and in the next season, she took silver at the Junior World Championships. She has one silver and two bronze medals from the IBSF World Cup.
Yuliya Kanakina was born on December 11, 1995, in Krasnoyarsk, Russia. Before starting skeleton, she was a ballet dancer. When she was 14 years old, a physical education coach came to her school to train a skeleton team for the Junior Olympic Games. He asks the teacher which child runs the fastest, and he points to Yuliya, who stands out for her good speed. At first, she combined ballet and skeleton, but in the end she chose the latter. Yuliya Kanakina is the IBSF Junior World Champion and Junior World silver medalist.
In her first season, when she was 16 years old, she placed tenth out of eleven possible places in the qualification for the Junior Olympic Games and became 15th at the European Championships in 2011. Yulia Kanakina began international competition in 2011 and was promoted to the World Cup squad in the 2014/2015 season.
Yulia Kanakina was the IBSF Junior World Champion in women’s skeleton for 2017 in Sigulda and finished 26th in the senior IBSF World Championships later that year.
In 2018, Yulia Kanakina took silver at the Junior World Championships, 0.81 seconds behind Anna Fernstadt.
She started competing at the senior level in 2019 and made a great achievement at the Sigulda European Championships in 2020, finishing 4th, after being 6th at 2019 Innsbruck.
At the IBSF World Cup, Yulia Kanakina has one silver medal from Sigulda in season 2021/2022 and two bronze medals from Altenberg in season 2021/2022 and 2018/2019. She competed also at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics but remained only 11th in the final standings.
At the World Championships, she has a best achievement of being 7th at the 2019 Whistler and 9th at the 2020 Altenberg. She also competed at the 2021 Altenberg World Championships, finishing 13th.
After getting married in 2022, she stepped down from the skeleton and now waiting for her first child.
Yuliya Kanakina photos
