Dobrynska announces retirement

[Mirror]

During a special ceremony at half time in the Dynamo Kyiv and Illichivets football match in Kyiv on Sunday, 2008 Olympic Heptathlon champion Natallia Dobrynska announced her retirement from athletics.

"I trained and competed here at the Olimpiyskiy stadium for many years and set my first national record here; that's why it is very symbolic that I announced my retirement here," said Dobrynska.

The 31-year-old Ukrainian was a surprise winner of the Olympic Heptathlon title in 2008, smashing her PB by almost 350 points to take gold with 6733.

She improved on that score two years later when taking the silver medal at the European Championships. She excelled indoors too and her first major medal came at the 2004 World Indoor Championships where she took silver.

After European indoor bronze in 2005 and World indoor silver in 2010, she arrived at the 2012 World Indoor Championships in the form of her life and broke the World indoor record with 5013, becoming the first woman to score more than 5000 points in the Pentathlon.

But just weeks later, her husband and coach Dmitriy Polyakov died suddenly of cancer.

Despite the devastating set-back, Dobrynska tried to defend her Olympic title at the 2012 Games, but did not finish the Heptathlon in what became the last competition of her career.