Alina Kovaleva


Alina Romanovna Kovaleva is a Russian curler from Saint Petersburg. Her major achievement to date was winning the 2015 European Curling Championships as alternate. Kovaleva is Merited Master of Sports of Russia.

Career

Kovaleva practiced curling in the school years in her home town Slantsy. She then moved to St. Petersburg to the Sports School of Olympic Reserve, No. 2. After three years of curling, she and her coach Alexey Tselousov became national champions and silver medalists at the 2011 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship. Since then she has been active in mixed tournaments.
From 2013 to 2014, she was a member of the national junior team, winning the 2013 World Junior Curling Championships in Sochi and the 2014 World Junior Curling Championships in Flims.
Kovaleva plays for Adamant in St. Petersburg as a skip. As a member of the club she won the 2013 Russian Cup and became the silver medalist at the, losing 7-4 in the final to Moskva 1.
In November 2015, Kovaleva debuted as the alternate for the national team at the 2015 European Curling Championships in Esbjerg, replacing Ekaterina Galkina who took a break from curling. The Russians won the tournament; it was Kovaleva's first gold medal at the European Championships. As an alternate, she and her team won the 2016 and 2017 World Women's Curling Championship bronze and silver respectively. She was also the alternate at the 2017 European Curling Championships, where her team finished 5th.
In 2018, Kovaleva has turned to playing as skip. Her first tour win as a skip came at the 2018 Prestige Hotels & Resorts Curling Classic. Later that season, she also won the China Open and the Russian Curling Cup. Elsewhere, she skipped the Russian team at the 2018 European Curling Championships, finishing fourth. She also skipped the Russian team at the 2019 World Women's Curling Championship, where she led her team to a 5th place finish. At the end of the season, she skipped in her first Grand Slam event at the 2019 Champions Cup, where she made the quarterfinals.
In 2019, Kovaleva won the 2019 Russian Women's Curling Championship for the first time. She defended her title the following year.

Grand Slam record

Event2015–162016–172017–182018–192019–20
MastersQFDNPQDNPDNP
Tour ChallengeQDNPDNPDNPDNP
NationalDNPDNPDNPDNPDNP
Canadian OpenQFDNPDNPDNPSF
Players'QDNPDNPDNPN/A
Champions CupDNPDNPDNPQFN/A

Awards