Elena Vesnina reveals Olympic medals, jewelry stolen in home invasion
The former doubles No. 1 won a silver medal in mixed at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in addition to the gold she captured in Rio.
Two-time Olympic medalist Elena Vesnina revealed both medals—in addition to jewelry—were stolen in a home invasion this weekend. No one was harmed in the break-in.
Vesnina and husband Pavel Tabunstov had left the house for dinner when intruders allegedly scaled a fence in broad daylight, making off with the gold medal she won in women’s doubles at the 2016 Rio Olympics and the silver she captured in mixed doubles just last month in Tokyo.
“It’s very scary,” she told me over text.
According to Kommersant.ru, the medals weren’t kept in a safe because she had taken them to show those who visited a children’s clinic in the last week; a safe containing jewelry was nonetheless hacked and cleared out. Vesnina, who showed off both medals at a TASS press conference upon her return from Tokyo, also recently appeared on an episode of Evening Urgant—Russia’s answer to _The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon_—alongside fellow medalists Karen Khachanov, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, and Andrey Rublev.
Vesnina returned to action earlier this season—having left the tour in 2018 to give birth to daughter Elizaveta—with the intent of adding to her Olympic medal haul. Finishing runner-up at Roland Garros in mixed doubles and at Wimbledon in women’s doubles, she also paired with Aslan Karatsev to reach the mixed doubles final at the Olympics, where they fell to Pavlyuchenkova and Rublev after holding a match point.