Alena Igorevna Zavarzina (; born 27 May 1989) is a Russian former snowboarder specializing in parallel slalom and parallel giant slalom disciplines. She is the 2011 World champion and bronze medalist from the 2014 Winter Olympics in parallel giant slalom. She won the parallel giant slalom crystal globe in 2016/17 World Cup season.
Career
Zavarzina started snowboarding at the age of 10 in her hometown Novosibirsk. She was participating in big air competitions before switching to the alpine snowboarding. She made her first appearance in National Championships as an 11-year-old, in 2000.
Early years: Europa Cup success
Zavarzina made her World Cup debut on 23 October 2006 in a parallel slalom race in Landgraaf where she finished in 31st place and scored her first World Cup points. It was her only World Cup start of the season and she mainly participated in Europa Cup for the next couple of seasons. She won three Europa Cup races during the 2007/08 season and placed third in the overall rankings. She won a bronze medal in parallel giant slalom at the 2008 Junior World Championships in Valmalenco. In the following season, despite managing only one victory in Europa Cup, Zavarzina reached the podium five times and finished the season as the runner-up in the overall standings. With that promising performances in the Europa Cup, Zavarzina was given a spot in the parallel giant slalom race at the 2009 World Championships in Gangwon, but she was unable to qualify for the elimination round after finishing 21st in qualification round. At the 2009 Junior World Championships in Nagano, she won a silver medal in parallel slalom, the discipline that she made only one podium in her Europa Cup career. She made four appearances in the World Cup during the 2008/09 season but passed the qualification round only once, in Landgraaf where she made her World Cup debut.
2009–2011: Breakthrough and World Championship title
Zavarzina became a regular World Cup competitor in 2009/10 season. She won her first World Cup victory in a parallel giant slalom race in Telluride, Colorado which was also her first World Cup podium. She reached a podium one more time during the season with a runner-up finish in Stoneham, Canada and finished the season in eighth-place in the parallel overall rankings. At the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Zavarzina made the 17th quickest time in the qualification round and missed out to advance for the elimination round by seven hundredths of a second as a fastest loser while her teammate Yekaterina Ilyukhina winning the silver medal.
Zavarzina started 2010/11 season in very good form with two podiums from her first two races. By doing so, she reached a podium in a parallel slalom race for the first time in her career and became the part of the Russian podium sweep in Limone Piemonte, the first ever in the history of the Parallel World Cup. At the 2011 World Championships in La Molina, Zavarzina won the gold medal in the parallel giant slalom and became the second ever Russian snowboarder to claim a World title after Yekaterina Tudegesheva who won the gold medal, also in parallel giant slalom, in 2007. In the parallel slalom event, Zavarzina tore ligaments in her right knee and sustained a season-ending injury during the qualification round after setting the fastest time in the first run of the qualification in blue course. After her success in World Championships, Zavarzina was awarded the title of Honoured Master of Sports of Russia.
2011–2014: Injury comeback and Olympic bronze medal
After returning from the injury, Zavarzina struggled to regain her form throughout the 2011/12 season, her eighth-place finish in Telluride was her best performance of the season. In the following season, her results started to improve. Although she did not manage to reach World Cup podium during the season, she made a couple of fourth-place finishes in Bad Gastein and Arosa. At the 2013 World Championships in Stoneham, Zavarzina was unable to defend her World title and eliminated in the quarter-finals in the parallel giant slalom event. In the parallel slalom, she was knocked out from the competition in the first elimination round.