Elena Kulichenko
Elena Kulichenko (; ; born 28 July 2002) is a Cypriot track and field athlete who competes in the high jump.

Early and personal life
From Odintsovo, she is the daughter of Marina Kulichenko and Alexei Kulichenko. After graduating from high school she studied and competed at a university in Russia, but found she was unhappy and accepted a scholarship to attend the University of Georgia to study International Development and to start competing for the Georgia Bulldogs.

Career

Junior career
Kulichenko was the 2017 Russia U-18  National Outdoor Champion and was a silver medalist at the 2017 European Youth Olympic Festival in Győr. In 2018, she was granted permission to compete in junior events as a neutral athlete.

Cypriot switch
In 2019, she was again declared eligible to compete as an authorised neutral athlete by the IAAF Doping Review Board even while the Russian national federation remained suspended. She met the exceptional eligibility criteria to compete in international competition under competition Rule 22.1A(b). 

She was able to gain Cypriot citizenship in 2019 because her father works and owns property in the country which has an investment programme which allows foreign nationals who invest in the Cypriot economy to apply for passports for themselves and their families. The Amateur Athletic Association of Cyprus gave her the condition that she serve a transition season prior to competing for them internationally. She was quoted in Time Magazine as saying “It wasn’t a spontaneous decision, I thought about it for a long time”, but that she received “hundreds of messages on Instagram calling me a traitor”. 

She began competing on the American collegiate circuit and was named SEC Women's Indoor Freshman Field Athlete of the Year for 2022, and also earned First-Team All-American honors. She won the bronze medal in the high jump at the 2023 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships, held in Austin, Texas in June 2023, finishing behind Lamara Distin
And Charity Griffiths.

In July 2023, she won the Cypriot national championships with a 1.90m clearance in Nicosia. Later that month, she cleared 1.91m to win gold at the 2023 European Athletics U23 Championships. It was Cyprus' first ever gold medal at the event.

Major championship debut
She cleared 1.92m for a new outdoor personal best to qualify for the final on her major championship debut at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, in August 2023.

References 

2002 births
Living people
Cypriot female high jumpers
Georgia Bulldogs women's track and field athletes
Cypriot people of Russian descent
Russian emigrants to Cyprus
Universiade silver medalists for Cyprus
Medalists at the 2021 Summer Universiade
Universiade silver medalists in athletics (track and field)
European Games competitors for Cyprus
Athletes (track and field) at the 2023 European Games