Zulfiya Zabirova

Zulfiya was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan on 19 December 1973. She is an ethnic Uzbek. In 1993 two years after the breakup of the Soviet Union she emigrated to Russia and lived in Rostov-on-Don. As the main reason for her emigration she cited that the Islamist leadership of the newly independent Uzbekistan is hostile to the women sports and the rights of women in general. In 1996 she became famous after winning the Olympic gold medal in Atlanta.

In 2005, she obtained the citizenship of Kazakhstan and announced her intention to compete as a member of the Kazakhstan team. As the reason for her decision she cited the better conditions for training and her desire to be closer to her native Uzbekistan (Kazakhstan has a reputation to be much more secular and democratic than Uzbekistan) as well as her family circumstances. According to the Russian Newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, Zabirova's main place of residence and training is Lugano, Switzerland (as of 2005).

• (in Italian) Official website
• Cycling Website profile
• Article in Komsomolskaya Pravda about Zabirova
• (in Russian) "Olympic Champion Zulfiya Zabirova"
• (in Russian) "Russian olympicist began to emigrate," article in the newspaper Utro.ru about Zabirova's plans to move to Kazakhstan