She represented the USSR at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, winning the gold in the K-1 500 m event.

[1][2] Only four months after her Olympic victory, Ryabchinskaya was taking part in winter training at Lake Paliastomi in the Soviet republic of Georgia when she fell into the water and died from abrupt cooling.

[3] An international competition is held in her honor in Moscow every spring.

[3] Ryabchinskaya also won a gold in the K-4 500 m event at the 1971 ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships in Belgrade.

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