Aleksey Borovitin

Aleksey Alekseyevich Borovitin was a Soviet ski jumper, two-time world championship medallist, two-time Olympian and later a Russian national coach. He died on 9 September 2026 at the age of 72 after a prolonged illness, the Federation of Ski Jumping and Nordic Combined of Russia announced the same day.

Borovitin was born on 14 February 1954 in Kirov, then in the Russian SFSR of the Soviet Union. Competing for Dynamo Kirov, he stood about 173 centimetres and weighed around 73 kilograms in his racing years. He rose through Soviet ski jumping in the 1970s and became one of the country's leading jumpers on the international circuit from the mid-1970s into the early 1980s.

His greatest championship results came in the individual normal hill. He won bronze at the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Falun, Sweden, in 1974, and again at Lahti, Finland, in 1978. In 1977 he won the ski jumping competition at the Holmenkollen ski festival in Norway, finished fourth at the Ski Flying World Championships, and was named the world's best ski jumper in a poll by the Austrian newspaper Volksstimme. He also won the Lahti Games twice, took four titles at the Hibinskaya Vesna competitions, collected silver at the Spartakiad of the Peoples of the RSFSR, and was a seven-time Soviet champion across various hills, including titles in 1977, 1979, 1980 and 1984. He further won prizes at Dynamiada events among socialist countries and three times at international competitions for the prizes of the Georgian SSR.

Borovitin represented the Soviet Union at two Winter Olympics. At Innsbruck in 1976 he placed 15th on the normal hill and 19th on the large hill. At Lake Placid in 1980 he finished 21st on the normal hill and 36th on the large hill.

After retiring from competition he turned to coaching, passing on technique to younger jumpers who went on to win Russian titles. In 2012 he became head coach of the Russian women's national ski jumping team. The Russian federation remembered him as an outstanding athlete, a true master of his craft and a coach of great inner strength. He is survived in public memory by his World Championship medals, Olympic appearances and later service to Russian ski jumping.