Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Born | Oral, Kazakhstan | 30 June 1992||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Height | 1.74 m (5 ft 9 in) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Weight | 70 kg (150 lb; 11 st) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sport | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Country | Kazakhstan | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sport | Short track speed skating | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Coached by | Madygali Karsybekov, Zhaslan Mukhambetkaliyev[1] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Abzal Azhgaliyev (born 30 June 1992) is a Kazakh male short-track speed skater.[1] He has competed in three Winter Olympic Games and is the first short-track skater from Kazakhstan to win a World Cup event.[2][3] Holding eight World Cup podiums, he is the most decorated Kazakh skater.[2]
Azhgaliyev was born in 1992 in Uralsk, West Kazakhstan.[4] He started skating at age nine when a recruiter came to his school and encouraged boys to try the sport.[5][2] At age eleven he tried short track and loved the speed of it.[5] He left secondary school and moved to a special school where he could focus on his training.[6] He graduated from the Kazakh Academy of Sport and Tourism with a degree in sports education.[2][6]
His coaches are Madygali Karsybekov, Zhasulan Mukhambetkaliev, and Pyotr Gamidov.[2][6]
Azhgaliyev's first international competition was in Moscow in 2006. It hooked him on the sport.[5]
In 2007, Azhgaliyev was designated Master of Sports of the Republic of Kazakhstan.[2][7]
In 2011, Azhgaliyev was on the relay team that won the bronze medal in the Asian Games.[7]
Azhgaliyev was the first Kazakh skater to win a World Cup event when he medaled in the 500m in 2016 in Salt Lake City, UT, United States. His time was 40.373 seconds.[7][8] He received the title of Master of Sports of International Class of the Republic of Kazakhstan.[7]
With state funding, Azhgaliyev and the other members of the national relay team trained in the Netherlands.[9] However, he professed to prefer training in Kazakhstan, instead. He prefers to be with family.[9] Now he trains in Nur-Sultan, where new facilities have been constructed.[5] Russian skaters Semen Elistratov and Dmitry Migunov train in Nur-Sultan with the Kazakh team.[5]
He has skated three times in the Winter Olympics.
His first winter games were in Sochi, Russia, in 2014, where he skated in the Men's 5000 Meters Relay.[2] The team took fifth place.[4]
He was the flagbearer in the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, Korea, where he was also the captain of the Kazakh National Olympic Team.[4] He competed in the Men's 5000 Meters Relay.[2]
In 2022, Azhgaliyev was once again the flagbearer for Kazakhstan.[2] In Beijing, China, he competed in the 500m Men's event, as well as the Mixed Team Relay team with Adil Galiakhmetov, Denis Nikisha, Yana Khan, and Olga Tikhonova.[10][2] Their relay team placed fifth.[2]
His athletic heroes include Russia's Viktor An, Canadian Charles Hamelin, and China's Wang Meng.[2]
He enjoys playing video games and watching soccer. His favorite teams are FC Akzhayik Uralsk and FC Barcelona. Before big races, he likes to have dinner with friends and family.[2]