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Tatiana Tarasova

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Tatiana Tarasova
Tarasova in 2018
Full nameTatiana Anatolyevna Tarasova
Born (1947-02-13) 13 February 1947 (age 77)
Figure skating career
Country Soviet Union
Retired1966

Tatiana Anatolyevna Tarasova (Russian: Татьяна Анатольевна Тарасова; born 13 February 1947) is a Russian figure skating coach and national figure skating team adviser.[1] Tarasova has been coach to more world and Olympic champions than any other coach in skating history. Her students have won a total of eight Olympic gold medals in three of the four Olympic figure skating disciplines, in addition to 41 gold medals at the European and World championships.

Personal life

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Tatiana Tarasova is the daughter of Anatoly Tarasov, a famed ice hockey coach, who introduced her to figure skating at the age of five. She lived for more than a decade in Simsbury, Connecticut before moving back to Russia in 2006. She is the widow of Vladimir Krainev, who died in April 2011.

Competitive career

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Tarasova competed in pair skating with Aleksandr Tikhomirov[2] and Georgi Proskurin. With Proskurin, she was a two-time Soviet national medalist. They finished 7th at the 1965 World Championships and 4th at the 1966 European Championships.[3] At 18 years of age, Tarasova sustained a career-ending injury.

Results

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with Proskurin

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International
Event 63–64 64–65 65–66
Worlds 7th
Europeans 6th 4th
Prague Skate 3rd
Winter Universiade 1st
National
Soviet Champ. 3rd 2nd

Later career

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Tarasova started coaching at age 19, at her father's insistence. Her most notable students have been Alexei Yagudin, Ilia Kulik, Natalia Bestemianova / Andrei Bukin, Oksana Grishuk / Evgeni Platov, Ekaterina Gordeeva / Sergei Grinkov, Marina Klimova / Sergey Ponomarenko, and Irina Rodnina / Alexander Zaitsev.

In the mid-1980s, Tarasova launched the Russian All-Stars, an ice ballet. She coached for ten years at Simsbury, Connecticut's International Skating Center before announcing her retirement from full-time coaching and moving back to Russia in 2006. A notorious chain smoker, Tarasova was known for smoking cigarettes during her coaching sessions.[4]

Her students have included:

Tarasova is assisted by choreographer Jeanetta Folle.

Views

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In March 2023, Tarasova lashed out at Canadian athletes who signed a petition calling for a continuation of the ban on Russian athletes amidst the Russo-Ukrainian War:[7]

We do not care if they don't want to see us. It always seemed to me that Canadians are a friendly, non-violent nation, they never showed themselves that way [negatively]. But here they can be understood – of course, they want to win, including in figure skating, at least something in [ice] dance. They don't need more competition. There is no other way to explain this statement. I don't want to believe that Tessa [Virtue] is an evil and unfair person. And I also think that we will participate in the [2026 Winter Olympic] Games.

Honours and awards

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Tarasova was awarded Order of Friendship of Peoples (1984).[8] In March 2008, she was inducted into the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame.

References

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  1. ^ "Советский спорт - новости футбол, хоккей, биатлон и другие виды спорта". Archived from the original on April 2, 2009.
  2. ^ Tarasova, Tatiana (1985). Chetyrie Vremeni Goda (in Russian). Moskva: Sov. Rossia. p. 176.
  3. ^ Skatabase Archived 2009-11-28 at the Wayback Machine
  4. ^ "Oksana Grishuk: "Tatiana Tarasova behaves dishonestly towards me and even deceives."".
  5. ^ "No tears, but Nagasu still must get past fears". Chicago Tribune. March 27, 2010.
  6. ^ Evan Lysacek, Figure Skating
  7. ^ Тарасова заявила, что канадцы пытаются избежать конкуренции, требуя сохранить отстранение россиян
  8. ^ Panorama of the 1984 Sports Year (in Russian). Moscow: Physical Culture and Sports publisher. 1985. p. 38.
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