Galina Nikolayevna Prozumenshchikova (Russian: Галина Николаевна Прозуменщикова, Ukrainian: Галина Миколаївна Прозуменщикова); 26 November 1948 – 19 July 2015) was a Soviet breaststroke swimmer who also competed in medley relays. She won five Olympic medals in 1964, 1968 and 1972 and five European Championships medals in 1966 and 1970. Her first Olympic medal, the gold in 200 m breaststroke in 1964, was the first Olympic gold in swimming for the Soviet Union. In 1964–1966 she set five world records: four in 200 m and one in 100 m breaststroke events. Between 1963 and 1972 she won 15 national titles and set 27 national records.

Biography

Galina was born in Sevastopol, Russia, then part of the Soviet Union. She married twice and therefore changed her last name first to Stepanova and then to Ivannikova.

Her father, Nikolai Nikolayevich (1913–1991) was a submarine captain. Mother, Sofia Petrovna (1922–1987) was a nurse and took part in World War II. Galina started swimming in a club in 1959 and until 1966 competed for SKF Sevastopol. By the time of her first Olympics in 1964 she won several national and international competitions and set national and world records in the 200 m breaststroke. (Her favorite discipline was 100 m breaststroke, but it became an Olympic event only in 1968.) However, she underwent surgery for appendicitis in July, just before the Games, and was not in her top form. She also had a strong rival, Svetlana Babanina, who set a world record in the 100 m breaststroke before the 1964 Olympics. Nevertheless, Prozumenshchikova won the 200 m event, setting a new Olympic record and winning the first Soviet Olympic gold in swimming. Babanina finished third.

In 1966, Prozumenshchikova enrolled in the faculty of journalism of the Moscow State University (MSU) and since then has lived in Moscow. In 1969 she gave birth to a daughter, Irina, and was on the verge of retiring. However, she returned to competition in 1970 and retired only in 1973. She graduated from MSU in 1976 and was writing sports columns for the major newspaper Izvestia. However, she soon left journalism, and between 1976 and 1980 worked as a sports functionary, and after 1980 as a swimming coach for children at CSKA.

In the 1970s she remarried, to Yuri Ivanovich Ivannikov (born 1950), an economist and had a son, Grigory Yurievich (b. 1979).

In 1991 she competed in swimming again and set at least 35 national records in the masters category. Prozumenshchikova died on July 19, 2015 after a long illness, according to the Russian Swimming Federation.