Lobacheva and Averbukh

Ilia started skating because of his mother at the age of 5. Ilia rather wanted to be a tennis player and said that kids nowadays in Russia learn how to play tennis instead of skating. When Ilia was growing up Russia didn't have any famous tennis players but definitely excelled in skating (Pakhomova/Gorshkov, Rodnina /Saitzev). Irina started skating when she was 6 years old.

Irina and Iia were skating in one group until she was 10. Then she started singles skating and Ilia went into dance.

Ilia Averbukh had previously skated with Marina Anissina and together they won 2 Junior World Championships ( 1990, 1992). He then wanted to skate with Irina, to whom he was married on March 10, 1995.

Irina Lobacheva had skated with Alexei Pospelov finishing 1st in the Nebelhorn Trophy in 1991 and 6th in the Russian Nationals in 1992 before teaming up with Ilia. Together they skate for the club "Twizzl Moscow".

After the Goodwill Games in the summer of 1994 their trainer team moved to Delaware/USA with all of their students to train at the Universiy of Delaware. Irina and Ilia did not want to leave their families in Russia and decided to stay in Moscow. After one year they followed Linnichuk & Karpanossov to once again train with them because they just did not progress in the placements.
Their costumes are made in Russia and designed by a Russian costume designer. They have a tailor's dummy there and once the costumes are finished they are sent to them. Ilia's mother helps with the sewing.

With the busy schedule in Delaware they have a hard time finding friends. Therefore, they miss their families and friends back in Russia a lot. Both have a brother of which Ilia's is 17 years.

They train from 9 -11 am and 10 pm - midnight plus approximately 2 hours off ice with only Sunday off. Since they are wound up after their midnight practice, they divide their sleep between the two practice sessions. So they feel tired quite a bit.

Irina is a great housewife (this is what Ilia said) and likes to keep things in order. On her day off she prepares all the meals for the whole week while Ilia rather relaxes, watches TV and uses his computer. He also bought one for his family, so they can stay in contact easier with Email. He also likes to play tennis and soccer. She enjoys to read and do ballett. In the fairly small town of Newark they miss cultural events. They appreciate New York with its big variety of theaters, to give them new innovation and impulses. For their vacation they try to go to Russia, but also love sunshine and beach. In the summer of 99 for example they enjoyed a 2 week vacation in Egypt.

They only want to continue skating amateur till 2002 or 2004 and then return to Russia because they believe life cannot just be skating. Irina might seek a career in coaching while this will not be an option for Ilia. He would rather go into TV commentating or journalism and use his experience in this field.
Favourite Compulsory Dance: Golden Waltz

Least favourite Compulsory Dance: Paso Doble

Coaches: Natalia Linnichuk & Gennadi Karpanossov (Olympic champions 1980)

Former coaches: L. Kabanova, N. Dybinskaya

Choreographers: Sergei Fokin - Irina Butskova - Nikolay Androsov - Natalia Linnichuk

Navka and Kostomarov

Russia's Tatiana Navka and Roman Kostomarov caused quite a stir last season when they finished third at the European Championships, jumping from seventh place the preceding year. The duo also won Russian Nationals, finished second at the ISU Grand Prix Final, and came fourth at the World Championships, a significant jump from their best prior finish, eighth in 2002. They also took silver medals at Skate America and the Cup of Russia.

Both skaters have been on the world scene for many years. Navka first competed at Worlds in 1995, finishing fifth with Samuel Gezoljan for Belarus, while Kostomarov won the World Junior Championships the following year with Ekaterina Davydova. In 1997 and 1998, Navka returned to Worlds with Nikolai Morozov, finishing tenth in 1998 before he retired to become a coach and choreographer. She teamed up with Kostomarov in 1999, finishing 12th at Worlds before taking off in 2000 to have a baby with her husband, Alexander Zhulin. Kostomarov skated with Anna Semenovitch that season, finishing 13th at Worlds, but after Navka's daughter Sasha was born in the summer of 2000, he called and asked her to compete with him again.

Kostomarov started skating when he was nine. "It was something to do," he said. "I tried swimming but I wasn't good at it so my mother took me to the rink. When I was eleven, a coach saw me and took me for dance." On the other hand, Navka begged to skate. "When I was five, I saw skating on television at the Olympics and from then on it was my dream to skate," Navka said. "Every day I talked about it. I begged my mother to buy me skates. She couldn't find blades but she bought me boots. I slept in my boots, dreaming about skating. Finally she found me a place to skate and blades and I started lessons." Navka skated singles in Odessa, training at the same club and with the same coach as Oksana Baiul, who arrived a few years later. After winning many city and regional competitions with a full array of double jumps, Navka hit a major growth spurt at twelve.

"I competed in singles for several years and did double axel and triple salchow," she said. "I got to the juniors in Ukraine. I was first in figures, second in the short and third in the long. I was a pretty good jumper," said Navka, "but suddenly my legs grew longer, my arms grew longer, and I couldn't do the triples. My coach told me I had to do the jumps or I could switch to dance. They told me I could wait a year but if I was not jumping I would have to go to dance. During the year, they taught me singing and dancing. And I learned to love to dance very much. I was dancing at the bus station. Then one of the dance coaches asked me to join his group." At 13, Navka's coach took several dance teams to Moscow to try out with the legendary Natalia Dubova. Only Navka was selected. Soon she was paired with Gezoljan, with whom she skated for six years and reached her first Worlds.

Navka and Kostomarov are coached by her husband, Sasha Zhulin, and Elena Tchaikovskaia. They train in Hackensack, New Jersey for one to two hours daily, five days a week during the summer, increasing to as many as four hours a day in the winter. In season, they take ballet classes, while in the summer, they run and work in the gym for conditioning. Kostomarov also cycles.

Tatiana Druchinina choreographed their dances for last season. They used a march and a waltz from the movie My Sweet and Affectionate Beast for their original dance and Peter Gabriel's The Feeling Begins for their free dance. "We all sit together to choose the music," Kostomarov said. "I like fierce music," Navka stated, "and sexy music." Off ice, she likes to listen to jazzy music and Russian pop music, while he likes hip-hop.

"We liked the free dance music because it had a lot of energy and passion. The first time I heard it I liked it and dreamed of skating to it. It was one of our best free programs." "I think the music we chose for the original dance was very dramatic," she said. "We were trying to tell a story, like War and Peace. At first, people are dancing, then they meet and fall in love, but war is coming." "It's very nice, very romantic," Kostomarov added.
Off ice, Kostomarov likes to play pool, soccer and tennis and go bowling. Navka played tennis when she was younger but is now learning how to play golf. "I'm just starting, but Sasha is a very good player," she said. She spends most of her time with Zhulin and her daughter. "My baby is my fun now," she said. "I spend every minute with her and miss her a lot when I'm gone. I've taken her skating a couple of times and I give her all the toys we get. We're also buying a new house, so I'm collecting dishes and china and things." Navka also likes to think up ideas for their costumes. "Sasha and I work together on the designs," she said.

They both enjoy travel. Kostomarov's favorite trip was to Australia, but Navka loved Italy. "It's very romantic. The food is unbelievable, the people are friendly, and there's lots of shopping and all kinds of things to see. Every part of the country is different with mountains and beaches."

The dancers' goal is to win an Olympic medal in 2006. "We won't go until 2010," Kostomarov said. "People might hate us if we stayed another four years." Both skaters have finished their studies at the Academy of Sport and may coach after they finish competing. Navka, who has a very exotic look, has also considered a career as a model.

Krylova and Ovsyannikov

Nearly ten years ago, Natalia Linichuk convinced Anjelika Krylova to end her partnership with Vladimir Fedorov and pursue a future skating with Oleg Ovsyannikov. Ovsyannikov, one of the last students of Liudmila Pakhomova had chosen skating over ballet college (Bolshoi Theater) at an earlier age due to Pahkhomova's encouragement to continue skating.

A career jewelled with a silver medal finish at the 1998 Olympic Games and two World Championship titles in 1998 and 1999 ended in fall 1999 when Krylova's recurring back injury forced the duo to take an indefinite break.

Anjelika and Oleg returned to the competitive scene as professionals in winter 2000.
Skating to a revised version of Carmina Burana (their intended free program for the previous season) and a new Cleopatra and Caesar artistic program, they finished second at the World Professional Championships. A year later, they won the 2001 American Open and the Hallmark Professional Figure Skaters Championship.

Grishuk and Platov

NAGANO, Japan - This time, would-be starlet Pasha Grishuk was subdued. There was little talk of auditions of any sort, whether it was her trying to find a movie career or a boyfriend. The only time Grishuk showed any of her attention-grabbing side was when a Russian reporter addressed her by her given name, Oksana.

``Excuse me,'' she said, ``I am Pasha.''

The adopted name perfectly fits the queen of an Olympic event that is part farce, part entertainment and completely impossible to evaluate by any fixed standards. The judges give marks, of course, but their scores are based part on politics and part on personal preference.

Few would argue with the quality of the skating that made Grishuk, 25, and Platov, 30, the first couple to win consecutive Olympic ice dance titles. They are native Ukrainians who skate for Russia and train in Marlborough, Mass.

Russians Anjelika Krylova and Oleg Ovsiannikov were second, with French couple Marina Anissina (a Russian expatriate) and Gwendal Peizerat, third. U.S. champions Elizabeth Punsand Jerod Swallow were seventh.

Russian skaters now have swept the gold medals in the first three of four figure skating events at the 1998 Olympics. That continues a remarkable record of success for a sports program some felt would fall apart when the Soviet Union did.

Since that nation dissolved into 15 separate countries in 1991, former Soviet skaters have won 10 of the 11 Olympic figure skating medals, eight by Russians and two by Ukrainians. The only exception was 1992 Olympic women's champion Kristi Yamaguchi of the United States.

It is left to U.S. skaters Michelle Kwan or Tara Lipinski to prevent a second straight sweep of the gold medals by ex-Soviets.

The Grishuk-Platov victory carried another distinction. It made their coach, Tatiana Tarasova, the first ever to have dance and singles champions in any Olympics, let alone the same Olympics.

Tarasova, who also coaches men's gold medalist Ilia Kulik, is the first to have two champions in the same Olympics since Carlo Fassi in 1976 with Dorothy Hamill and John Curry.

``It's unbelievable how she can do freestyle (singles) and dance,'' Grishuk said of Tarasova, who also had coached two Olympic champions in pairs. ``They are completely different.''

``Singles is my dream,'' Tarasova said before Kulik's victory.

Dance has become a nightmare for the International Skating Union.

Its presence in the Olympics inevitably leads to more stories about rigged judging than about the skating itself.

``Dance is misguided to the point where it is its own worst enemy,'' said 1980 Olympic singles champion Robin Cousins of Great Britain.

It doesn't take long for the skaters to catch on to the idiocy of their discipline. Even Charles Butler, the 18-year-old from Kalamazoo, understood how things worked when he called his 21st-place performance with 15-year-old partner Jessica Joseph an exhibition.

Joseph and Butler's flip-flop with French team Dominique Deniaud and Martial Jaffredo for the 20th and 21st places was the only position change of the 24 couples caused by the free dance scores. The top nine places did not change after the compulsory dance section of the three-phase event.

``Ice dance is not sport,'' said Natalia Dubova, the Russian coach who trains fourth-place Canadians Shae-Lynn Bourne and Victor Kraatz in Lake Placid, N.Y.

Dubova, who knows all about such things from her days as a Soviet coach, found herself complaining about deals among the five coaches from former Soviet Bloc countries. Bourne simply dismissed her event as a joke after losing the bronze medal because of a fifth place in one compulsory dance.

``We skated so well, it's stupid,'' Bourne said. ``You just laugh at it and get past it.''

Grishuk and Platov, skating to memorial music for the 39 people who died in a 1985 soccer stadium riot, impressed with the number of twizzles (dance spins) she did as well as their remarkable ability to keep all their footwork in perfect unison. That didn't move Dubova.

``All of us remember how Torvill and Dean improved our sport,'' she said, referring to 1984 Olympic champions Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean of Great Britain. ``I always ask what Grishuk and Platov have done. They don't improve the sport.''

But they get the last laugh - and the gold medals.