Evgeni Plushenko is the most accomplished figure skater in recent memory. He won gold in the Individual Men’s category in the 2006 Turin Olympics and gold in the Team Mixed event at last year’s Sochi Olympics. He also won silver medals in the individual men’s events in 2010 and 2002.
Plushenko has been referred to as “the greatest figure skater of all time” by many critics and peers. He is known for his original style which included jumps that had not been seen before in figure skating (such as the double toe loop). He has won more than 30 international competitions including the Golden Spin of Zagreb, Gold at the European Championships, and Gold at the World Championships.
Plushenko first gained attention when he was selected by Viktor Petrenko to be one of the Soviet Union’s figure skating teams at the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France. The team finished second behind Canada with Plushenko winning a bronze medal individually. At the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, Plushenko won a further two bronze medals this time in the individual events.
In 1996, Plushenko decided to switch coaches from Viktor Petrenko to Oleg Taktikov. Under Taktikov, Plushenko won three consecutive World titles from 1998 to 2000. In 2001, Plushenko returned to Petrenko who had by then been appointed as the coach of the Russian national team.
Yuzuru Hanyu Sets the Stage for His Third Olympic Gold Medal. His combination of athleticism and elegance distinguishes him as maybe the greatest figure skater of all time. Gillis Grafstrom of Sweden is the only guy to have won a gold medal in three consecutive Olympics (1920, 1924, 1928). He did it in ice hockey, too! Hanyu is already the most successful figure skater in Olympic history.
Hanyu was born on January 4th, 1995, in Hangzhou, China. He is one of three children of Chinese parents who moved to Japan when he was young so that he could learn Japanese culture and compete in international competitions. When he was five years old, his family returned to their home country of China where he has been living since then.
Hanyu started skating at a very early age. His first coach was his mother who had learned to skate like this: “From an early age, Yuzuru would watch her practice sessions and copy what she did. This made my mother want to continue teaching me even though I was too young to understand what was going on.”
He started taking lessons from a professional coach after he achieved success at the national level. In 2011, at the age of 14, Hanyu became the youngest male singles champion in the history of the Winter Olympic Games when he won the bronze medal in Vancouver. Two years later, he captured the world title without losing a single match.
Yvonne van Gennip of the Netherlands dominated the individual medal table with three golds, while Sweden’s Tomas Gustafson was the most successful male skater, with two golds. When it was opened, the Calgary Olympic Oval was one of the fastest in the world, with six new world records set and all old Olympic records bettered. The $10 million facility was built for the 1988 games as a replacement for the aging Olympic Saddledome that had been used since 1976.
The Calgary Olympics were the first to be broadcast live across Canada on television in prime time. More than 100 million Canadians watched as over 5 million people from around the world joined together in the spirit of friendship and competition to celebrate the human spirit.
The Calgary Olympics are also known for their controversial closing ceremony, when the city was hit by an unexpected ice storm just hours before the event was due to begin. Although many major sports events have closed with a show, this was the first time that an entire opening ceremony had been cancelled due to weather conditions. After several days of freezing temperatures, heavy snowfall, and high winds, organizers decided to call off the remainder of the games rather than risk injury to athletes or spectators. This decision was later reversed after public outcry caused by false reports that the ice storm might still be happening during the closing ceremony.
In the end, everyone involved with the Calgary Olympics agreed that it was a success and that they would do it again if given the chance.
Grigorev also became the oldest man to win an Olympic short track medal at 31 years and 191 days. Adelina Sotnikova won the first Russian ladies’ figure skating gold medal on February 20, 2014. She is now 11 months and 16 days old.
Grigorev won his second gold medal at the Paris Games of 1892. He was 33 years old.
Adelina Sotnikova is the youngest person to win a gold medal in figure skating history. At 11 months and 16 days old, she beat out David Pelletier of Canada by one day. The 19-year-old from Novosibirsk in Russia has already become Russia’s most successful female skater ever with three gold medals from four competitions so far this year. She has also broken several age-related records including: oldest woman to win an Olympic title, oldest woman to win two titles, and oldest woman to win three titles.
Of Grigorev’s two gold medals, one was at the inaugural Winter Olympics and the other at the Summer Olympics. Of Adelina Sotnikova’s three gold medals, one each came at the Youth Olympics, World Championships, and European Championships.
They both celebrated their victories in Saint Petersburg during the summer of 1914.
The team event first appeared at the 2014 Winter Olympics. It permitted skaters to win two medals in a single discipline. Evgeni Plushenko became the first figure skater to win multiple contests on February 9, 2014.
Gold medals have been won by the United Kingdom, the Unified Team, and the United States in three of the events. Russia and the Unified Team are the only NOCs to have won three events at the same Olympics, in the 2014 Winter Olympics and in 1992. In a single Olympics, no NOC has won more than three figure skating events.
Petrenko has had a hectic schedule since winning the gold. He not only trained fellow Ukrainian figure skater Oksana Baiul, who went on to win gold in 1994, but he also coached three-time skating champion Johnny Weir, three-time Ukrainian champion Natalia Popova, and 2010 Czech champion Michal Brezina.
With five medals apiece, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir are the most decorated Olympic figure skaters. Marina Klimova and Sergei Ponomarenko, ice dancers, earned a bronze medal in 1984, a silver medal in 1988, and a gold medal in 1992.
The United States Olympic Figure Skating Team earned bronze in the team event at the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea. Maia Shibutani and Alex Shibutani won bronze in the ice dance event later in the Games. The entire U.S. team was awarded $40,000.
The U.S. has been sending a squad to the Olympics since 1900. In total, Americans have won three gold medals (in 1964 and 1968) and one silver (in 1952). They have also taken part in many other events with no gold to show for it. Of the American victories, two were achieved by pairs teams - Roy and Rita Heath (1948) and Dorothy Hamill and Peter Boettcher (1968) - and one by an individual skater, Karen Kain who won the women’s title in 1992.
Besides the members of the national team, other people have also represented America at the Olympics. A number of famous athletes are listed on the U.S. roster for various events when they were competing under their own country’s flag. These include bobsledder Dave Roberts, hockey players Bill Goldsworthy and Don Gallinger, and speedskaters Earl Campbell and Billy Fiske. Women’s basketball player Dawn Staley and volleyball player Michael Christian are some of the other athletes who have been selected by USA Basketball while they were competing as representatives of their countries.
Copyright © 2020 - 2026 Sportsmanist Inc.
