Katya Gordeyeva

Katya Gordeyeva and Sergey Grinkov were the best pairs skaters at the end of the 1980s and many consider them to be the greatest pairs team ever to take the ice. They rose into prominence in 1986, when they won their first gold at the World Championships. They would later win three more golds at the World Championships (1987, 1989, 1990) and one silver in 1988. At the European Championships, Gordeyeva and Grinkov won golds in 1988, 1990 and 1994 and a silver in 1986. They also won gold at the 1988 Winter Olympics, their only Soviet title coming in 1987. Gordeyeva and Grinkov turned professional in 1990 and in April 1991 they married, with a daughter born in 1992.

As professionals, Gordeyeva and Grinkov won the World Professional Championships in 1991, 1992 and 1994 and toured with Stars on Ice. But when a new ISU rule allowed professional skaters to regain their Olympic eligibility, the pair returned to amateur competition for the 1993-94 season and skated at the Olympics, winning their second gold. In 1994 they won their only Russian title. After their second Olympics, the pair again turned professional and toured with Stars on Ice. In the summer of 1995, Gordeyeva and Grinkov were inducted into the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame and planned to return to Stars on Ice for their fourth season.

But on 20 November 1995, while the pair was rehearsing for opening night of the upcoming tour, Grinkov collapsed on the ice and died at age 28 from a massive heart attack. Doctors later discovered that Grinkov had a congenital heart condition which caused his death. In February 1996, Gordeyeva returned to the ice, this time as a solo performer and skated with Stars on Ice until 2000, when she took some time off to give a birth to a second daughter. A year later, Gordeyeva married Ilya Kulik, the father of her second daughter and the 1998 Winter Olympic singles gold medalist. Gordeyeva skated professionally until 2007. She later worked as a skating coach and choreographer in the United States, and published two books, My Sergei: A Love Story (1996), which in 1998 was made into a movie “My Sergei,” starring Yelena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze as Gordeyeva and Grinkov, and A Letter for Daria (1998).