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“Every day I trotted to the skating rink in the company of my girlfriends from kindergarten and knew: it’s mine to skate and do jumps when others are looking at you. This is exactly what I want. And I know for sure that I can do it,” wrote Katarina Witt (Katarina Witt) in her autobiography “My years between the compulsory and free program”, published in 1994.

Early success

Katharina Witt was born on December 3, 1965 near Berlin. She took her first steps in figure skating at the age of five at a sports school in the city of Karl-Marx-Stadt (present-day Chemnitz). There she was noticed by the famous trainer Jutta Müller. She quickly recognized the future champion in the little girl.

In his element

Witt achieved her first major success in 1983 at the European Championships in Dortmund, and a year later she became the champion of the Olympic Games in Sarajevo. We can safely say that in the 1980s, Katharina Witt had no equal in women's figure skating. From 1983 to 1988, she was a European champion, climbed to the top step of the podium at the world championships four times, and in 1988 in Calgary she became an Olympic champion for the second time.

Socialism or capitalism?

Along with fame, the athlete’s life included all the pompous attributes of “official” sport, which in the GDR was always inseparable from politics. Katharina Witt often had to be photographed with members of the Politburo, take part in congresses and other official ceremonies. She did this extremely reluctantly, since she already belonged to a new generation of East German youth - free and oriented towards democratic values.

After the Olympic Games in Calgary in 1988, it finally became clear that the “beautiful granddaughter of grandfather Marx” had turned into an all-German sports idol, who was equally worshiped in both the GDR and the Federal Republic of Germany. It destroyed the Berlin Wall that existed in the minds of West and East Germans.

Katharina Witt enjoyed the freedom of movement that came with her job. In November 1988, Witt decided to give up her sports career and broke one of the main taboos of “socialist sports” by signing a contract with the American ice ballet Holiday on Ice. Thus, she took another step in the direction of show business, from which after the fall of the Berlin Wall she would become inseparable. In the GDR, her participation in the American show became a sensation. Katarina's success as a professional figure skater exceeded all expectations.

After the Wall

Thanks to the changed rules, in 1994 she returned to the sport and took part in the Winter Olympic Games in Lillehammer. And although there she failed to win the championship title for the third time (she took seventh place), Katarina’s fans were happy with her performance.

In 1998, Witt posed nude for Playboy. This issue became one of the most successful in the history of the men's magazine. Only twice did its circulation sell out completely, down to a single copy: when there was a portrait of Marilyn Monroe on the cover and when photographs of Katharina Witt were published in the magazine.

From “the most beautiful face of socialism” to “the goat of the SED”

For many years, the GDR basked in the glory and sporting success of the figure skater. And not only that: the ice princess also replenished the state treasury, donating 80 percent of her proceeds. At the same time, the favorite of functionaries enjoyed some privileges: the car and dishwasher given to her by the state became the reason for numerous reproaches brought against the skater by her compatriots after the peaceful revolution in the GDR. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Katharina Witt became the target of harsh criticism. If earlier the media called her nothing less than “the most beautiful face of socialism,” now the tabloid press nicknamed the figure skater “the goat of the SED.”

Context

Since 1992, accusations have appeared in the press that the athlete worked for the state security services of the GDR. Witt is seeking a court order to stop a number of publishing houses from spreading such rumors. In 2001, she went to court in Berlin in an attempt to prevent the publication of a secret dossier kept on her by the East German secret police. Subsequently, the skater was forced to agree to this, but stated that such a publication was an invasion of her privacy.

Secret Stasi files filed against Katharina Witt indicate that she has been under continuous surveillance since 1973. Part of the dossier is now available to the public. The contents of these documents came as a shock to the athlete herself. “I would prefer never to know about some things. I was not an informer, just as I was not a participant in the resistance movement,” Witt wrote in her autobiography.

Outside the rink

She starred in films and television films, playing either herself or athletes with a similar fate, became the host of several popular television shows, including an analogue of the Russian “Ice Age”, and developed a series of jewelry named after the champion. In 2005, the figure skater created the Katarina Witt Stiftung charity foundation. Its tasks include helping children living in regions affected by natural disasters, supporting disabled children and much more.

Katharina Witt actively lobbied for Munich to be the host city for the 2018 Winter Olympics, officially representing the city at various events. But, as is now known, this enterprise was not successful. The Munich residents themselves opposed holding the Olympics in their city, and the competitions will eventually be held in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

There have always been many rumors about Katharina Witt's personal life. She was even credited with an affair with Erich Honecker, the state leader of the GDR. She has never been married and has no children. Among the more or less “official” boyfriends were German musicians Ingo Politz and Rolf Brendel, as well as American actors Richard Dean Anderson and Danny Huston.

Incomparable and incomparable. "Here she rushes to the music from Carmen. Long-legged, graceful, flirtatious, seductive. Her Carmen is impudent, but when she calms down in the arena and smiles at someone, everyone thinks that the smile is intended only for him. This cannot be learned, with "You have to be born this way. And yet, she adds a 'little bit' of sex to everything, which makes Katarina even more charming." These lines were written in 1988 not by a poet who had lost his head in love, but by a coach known for his brutal rigor. It turns out that the queen threw him at her feet.
“My life never belonged to me,” Katarina Witt now admits. “I once believed that the personal begins outside the ice rink, but, my God, how naive I was!” She had barely grown out of childhood when the GDR Ministry of State Security opened a dossier on the young, beautiful athlete, which by the time of German reunification had swelled to eight volumes. A lot of things are turned inside out there - and the most intimate, secret, happened or invented, in any case, exclusively personal, not touching other people's eyes and thoughts.
Here is an extract from an intelligence report dated November 21, 1988: “The person who remained in the facility turned out to be K. Witt, and the male person was Mr. X. From 6.00 to 6.18 they had sexual intercourse.” "Persona" is an American figure skater with whom Katarina spoke in English. The informer, who did not know the language and did not have the material to denounce, composed, in the words of the athlete, “this deceitful sexual plot.” Another “secret document” reported that “from 20.00 Witt had intimate relations with the trainer, which ended at 20.07.”
Love stories - often empty gossip - accompany the brilliant figure skater throughout her life. Several English newspapers, Katharina recalls, reported after Boris Becker’s defeat at the Wimbledon tournament that “the ice princess from the GDR consoled the tennis player from Germany all night. They tried to achieve German unification in bed.” Both still claim that the only thing that united them was sports.
German newspapers once reported that the ice princess had three affairs with different men within one week. “It’s strange,” the charming Katty remarked to this, “what did I do for the other four days?”
In the love sphere, everything happened to the incomparable and incomparable, including the harassment of the madly in love American Weltman, who, in the intervals between his stays in police stations and in the psychiatric hospital, annoyed the icy beauty. There was also great love - with actor Richard Dean Andersen. The lovers, busy with endless travel, met in different countries and different cities. Both were convinced that there could be no better personal relationship between a man and a woman in life than theirs, and they made plans for the future. “But little by little doubts crept in,” Katarina returns to these dramatic years for her, “there was your life, your success, you did everything for yourself, as you wanted and could. You got used to independence and independence, to manifestations of spontaneous nature - and suddenly at every step I have to think whether it will be good for the other and whether you can do it? On the streets he was surrounded by fans, but I remained on the sidelines. In sports palaces, the worship immediately switched to me, and Richard felt unnecessary. Our glory and fame each had a dark side."
One day at six in the morning, while he was still sleeping, Katarina packed her suitcase. Richard suddenly woke up and asked in complete confusion: “Can you just leave?” She replied: “It’s all over.” “I should,” Witt later recalled, “tell him a lot, but, alas, deep, sincere and sincere conversations have not yet become part of our communication.” They broke up. Richard called soon after. “I thought,” says Katti, “that he would passionately convince and persuade me, but his voice sounded distant. This no longer saddened me, but infuriated me. Then I found out that he called from the plane, surrounded by strangers, inquisitive people. But it was already too late...
Either this affair left an unhealed wound, or there are other reasons, but she still hasn’t found her prince. And the private life of “former GDR citizen Katharina Witt” continues to excite the imagination of the average person. It is possible to look into the surviving Stasi archives if the “public interest” is pursued. One of the journalists looked in, bringing to light, in particular, the informers’ “observations” of the intimate life of the great athlete. She immediately filed a lawsuit. And now a decision has just been made: everything related to private life is not subject to disclosure, but the rest, which mainly includes the relationship of the famous athlete with the Ministry of State Security of the GDR, can be found out.
From now on, an opaque curtain will be drawn before love gossip and denunciations, the rest will be on an open stage, although sometimes it is difficult to separate the personal from the “public.” Before the unification of Germany, Katharina Witt was called in the West “the most beautiful face of socialism.” As soon as the Berlin Wall fell, many publications began to call it either the “red goat” or “Honecker’s spoiled child”, or even completely label it with obscenely offensive labels.
She could have fled to the West at any moment, as many citizens of socialist Germany dreamed of, but she did not run away. “It would be absolutely dishonest,” she says with conviction, “in relation to my fellow citizens, who, in fact, paid for my sports activities and successes on the ice rinks.”
After pioneering, she was supposed to join the Komsomol, and at the age of 18 - the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. Members of the party were her father, whom she treats with sincere love, and her “sports mother,” the famous coach Jutta Müller. The ice queen enjoyed not only royal glory, but also benefits that ordinary citizens of socialist Germany did not know.
This is evidenced by documents from the Stasi archives, which the court now allowed to be used. She was guaranteed to receive Western fees (though not all of them); it became known, in particular, about the transfer of 372 thousand Western marks to the name of Katharina Witt to Handelsbank. The archive also contains a receipt from the athlete who received a Volkswagen Golf from the MGB. One of the papers reports that the Stasi gave her an apartment, a Lada-2107 car, and her parents a Wartburg, for which an ordinary person in the GDR could stand in line for ten years.
When these messages appeared in the press, Katharina Witt said: “I thanked for these gifts, because I imagined what an advertising role I played for the republic in those years. Besides, I’m just being polite.” The agent, who was talking about handing over the keys to the car and apartment, commented on the old conversation in a different way in a note to MGB chief Erich Mielke: “Katarina Witt sees in the Ministry of State Security a partner whom she trusts with all problems and concerns, including her attitude towards men”...
Time has shown that the incomparable and incomparable figure skater copes perfectly with all the problems and concerns: she still trains every day for three to four hours, organizes ice shows, is engaged in “related” businesses, helps children’s figure skating in the former GDR, appears on television and he even shoots for Playboy, since he still has something to show on the pages of the men's magazine. Katarina herself fights off the paparazzi, one of whom once climbed on a crane to the window of her apartment on the eighth floor and, taken by surprise, said almost as an anecdote: “I came to inspect the house on behalf of the city authorities.” The “caretaker” received a royal assault and fell somersault down the stairs from the eighth floor. It was worse for the two robbers, who had already collected the jewelry of Katarina, who unexpectedly returned home. She grabbed a kitchen knife and rushed at them, the criminals running empty-handed straight into the arms of the police patrol.
Yes, in Witt’s life there were not very royal incidents, but she is not the pampered palace “Her Majesty”, but a great worker of the sports fields, which she came to as a five-year-old child. Within a few years, she had to spend seven to eight hours on the ice every day. “I literally fell into bed dead,” recalls Katty. “But a real athlete must rise above the limits of his capabilities.” She rose - both in sports and in business life. It will rise, perhaps, in love.

Katharina Witt(German: Katarina Witt; born December 3, 1965, Staaken, West Berlin) - East German figure skater, two-time Olympic champion in single skating (1984, 1988), four-time world champion (1984, 1985, 1987, 1988), six-time European champion ( 1983-1988 in a row), eight-time champion of the GDR.

Career in sports

She trained with coach from the GDR Jutta Müller at the sports club SK Karl-Marx-Stadt. In 1977 she made her debut at the GDR championship. In 1979, she took 3rd place at the GDR Championship and made her debut at the World Championships.

She often performed unsuccessfully in compulsory figures, but was distinguished by her exceptionally harmonious short and free programs. She was one of the first in the history of the World Championships to perform a triple flip jump (1981). In 1984-1988, she mastered only two triple jumps, the toe loop and the Salchow, with the exception of the 1987 World Championships, where she also achieved the triple loop.

In total, Katarina Witt has won 20 international and national awards, which is a record in women's singles skating.

After sports

After finishing her amateur career in 1988, she performed in professional ice shows. In 1989, Witt began working under contract with the American ice ballet troupe Holiday on Ice. In 1992, she became the world champion among professionals. In the professional arena, her partners were Brian Boitano and Brian Orser. After professionals were allowed to compete at the Olympics, she took part in her third Winter Olympics in 1994, where she took 7th place.

In 1996, the film “The Ice Princess” was released (co-produced by Germany - USA) with Katarina in the title role, and in 1998 the film “Ronin” was released, where she starred in the cameo role of the Russian figure skater Natasha Kirillova.

Time magazine called Witt "the most beautiful face of socialism." In 1998, 32-year-old Katarina participated in an erotic photo shoot for Playboy magazine, which sought the skater’s consent for 10 years. The December issue published a series of impressive photographs in which a completely naked athlete poses against the backdrop of tropical nature, under a waterfall. In a published interview that accompanied the photo shoot, Witt explained that she decided to take this step at the request of her friend, who wanted to see these photographs in the magazine. The issue with Katarina's participation was among the top five best-selling in all the years of Playboy magazine's existence. Witt keeps the amount of the fee received secret, however, specifying that it was a “decent amount.”

In 2008, 42-year-old Katharina Witt decided to say goodbye to ice completely. From February 16 to March 4, farewell performances of the “Star Show” were held in eight cities in Germany.

After finishing her figure skating career, Witt planned to host television programs, produce shows on ice, and also devote more time to the charitable foundation she founded in 2006, which helps disabled children. In 2010, Katharina led Munich's bid to host the 2018 Olympics.

As of 2015, Witt periodically appears in films, in particular she can be seen in the film “Jerry Maguire” with Tom Cruise. Katharina hosts programs on German television and is a judge in the German version of the show “Stars on Ice.”

Personal life

Katharina Witt is not married and has no children. Lives in Berlin, where she has an apartment. In an interview for the Russian press, Witt mentioned that in her life there was happy love and serious relationships with men, but for the sake of marriage she cannot afford to sacrifice her profession and stop doing her favorite job. Travels a lot around the world, often visits Moscow. Katarina speaks fluent English and quite passable Russian.

Sports achivments

Let's remember Katharina Witt- figure skater from East Germany.
Katarina Witt - second and only two-time Olympic champion in women's singles*(won the 1984 and 1988 Olympic Games).
Represented the German Democratic Republic - GDR. City Karl-Marx-Stadt, which doesn't exist now.
She was called “the most beautiful face of socialism” and, of course, hated.

So, the year is 1984. Olympic Games in Sarajevo where there is no war yet. Katharina Witt:

A figure skater from socialist Germany performed to the accompaniment of Nazi-German music for a demonstration performance. No, not like that...Under .

Short program-1984. Katarina Witt and the Hungarian csardas.
An impartial American judge gave Katarina 5.5 for technique and 5.6 for artistry. The grades that figure skaters usually receive at the Olympics are below average. Of course, no one thought that the American was trying to play along with the American figure skater Rosalyn Sumners. Well, maybe he just doesn't like Hungarian music. Despite this, Katharina Witt still received a gold medal.

Free program in Sarajevo 1984. This time the American judge gave in and gave it a 5.8 for artistry. And the lowest score was given by a judge from fraternal socialist Yugoslavia. And still, Katarina Witt is an Olympic champion.

I don’t want to talk about bad things, but I’ll say it anyway.
Since Katharina Witt was the “face of socialism,” the so-called “Soviet intelligentsia” hated her. The fact is that the “intelligentsia” did not understand much about figure skating, but they knew for sure that ideal skaters were Belousova and Protopopov. These are the Olympic champions in pair skating in 1964 and 1968. (unlike women’s singles, where only two women managed to win Olympic gold more than once, one of whom was Katarina Witt, in pair skating, Soviet pairs consistently won over and over again). Then this couple decided to betray the Soviet Motherland and fled to the West. In the West, they did not achieve success in figure skating, and therefore became an ideal for the “intelligentsia”.

The “Soviet intelligentsia” knew for sure that a real figure skater should flee to the West. Well, for a German figure skater to escape to West Germany is simply a sacred thing. Katharina Witt did not want to flee to West Germany, because the “intellectuals” hated her fiercely.

When the “liberal intelligentsia” has nothing to complain about in essence, it practices inventing all sorts of nasty things, especially in relation to women.
In those distant times, i.e. in the 1980s, “intellectuals” liked to emphasize that Katarina had ugly legs. Well, I agree that her legs are not perfect, the muscles are visible. Well, she's an athlete, not a fashion model. Not everyone has an ideal figure like Valeria Novodvorskaya.

Since Katharina Witt never got married and has no children, “liberal journalism” throughout the 90s practiced making up all sorts of insinuations, even to the point that the bloody German Gebnya gave her some kind of drugs, for which she not like a woman. (Although in the case of figure skating, there is no point in using such drugs at all. After all, it is not strength that is important, but coordination of movements).
In fact, Katarina had quite normal relationships with men (she is definitely not a lesbian). And the reluctance to reproduce, unfortunately, is a typical feature of the Germans. And the point is not that “there are a lot of fagots among the Germans” (as the “spiritually strong” like to say). Germans and German women are selfish and value their individual comfort most of all. In addition, Germans are workaholics (because when Katharina says that she could not trade her job for her family, I believe her. This is typical for a German woman).
Let me note that the inhabitants of “free” West Germany stopped reproducing for a very long time. The backward East Germans from the GDR still somehow had children, but after reunification they also stopped. It's sad, but there's nothing to be done.

It is curious that Chancellor Merkel was married twice. However, for some reason she has no children. Unlike Katharina Witt, who simply did not get married. But for some reason no one makes up insinuations about Frau Merkel. Probably because the “liberal intelligentsia” likes Frau Merkel.

There was also a favorite trick of the “liberals” - to say that Katharina Witt was a mistress Eric Honecker. Well, it is clear that the German figure skater could not have won the competition if she had not been personally “blessed” by the 76-year-old Secretary General. And in general, according to the “liberals,” the GDR did not strive to demonstrate its sporting successes to the whole world, and did not create ideal conditions for athletes for this purpose. No, there the entire management first fucked the skaters, and only then gave them a victory pill from the secret safes of Gebni.
The fact is that a “liberal” is a creature for whom everything is below the belt. He has no brain, no heart, no soul. He has in his head what ordinary people have below the belt. And he tries to attribute this understanding of life to normal people.

Sorry for ruining the mood. Yes, the world is not ideal.

Calgary 1988. Carmen and second Olympic gold:

*Someone may ask: “How can this be second And the only one? Is Comrade Machine Gun starting to talk?" Yes, it’s simple :) The first was Sonya Henie. But in 1936 she won the Olympic Games in Nazi Berlin and became a three-time champion.

Photo: Vida Press

Over the past 30 years, seven figure skaters have become Olympic champions in women's single skating - from the German Katharina Witt to the Korean Yuna Kim. Favorites of millions, sex symbols and teenage girls: what happened to the Olympic champions after their finest hour?

Our story would be incomplete without mentioning the figure skaters who never won gold, but left a bright and long mark in the history of figure skating.

Photo: AP/Scanpix

Katarina Witt dominated women's figure skating in the 1980s. The future figure skating star was born in 1965 near Berlin, represented the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and won two Olympic gold medals - in 1984 in Sarajevo and in 1988 in Calgary. From 1983 to 1988 she was consistently European champion and also won four gold medals at the world championships.

In 1988, Witt gave up her sports career and signed a contract with the American ice ballet Holiday on Ice. In the GDR, her participation in the American show became a sensation.

Katarina's success as a professional figure skater exceeded all expectations. After professionals were allowed to compete at the Olympics, she took part in her third Winter Olympics in 1994, where she took 7th place.

Photo: Reuters/Scanpix

The Ice Princess also replenished the state treasury of the GDR, donating 80 percent of her proceeds, and enjoyed the immense support of the then socialist leadership of the country, but after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Katharina Witt became the object of harsh criticism. If earlier the media called her nothing less than “the most beautiful face of socialism,” now the tabloid press nicknamed the skater “the goat of the SED,” hinting at her connections with the state security service of the GDR.

In 1998, Witt posed nude for Playboy. This issue became one of the most successful in the history of the men's magazine. Only twice did its circulation sell out completely, down to a single copy: when there was a portrait of Marilyn Monroe on the cover and when photographs of Katharina Witt were published in the magazine.

Witt also starred in films and television films, playing either herself or athletes with a similar fate, became the host of several popular television shows, and developed a series of jewelry named after the champion.

In 1998, in the film "Ronin" she starred in a cameo role as Russian figure skater Natasha Kirillova. And in 2012, Witt played the main role in the television film “The Enemy of My Life.” According to the scenario, a famous figure skater is preparing for a show, and at the same time she is being pursued by an anonymous person whom the police cannot identify. According to Witt, when he performed in the USA, she herself found herself in a similar situation.

In 2005, the figure skater created the Katarina Witt Stiftung charity foundation. In 2008, Witt decided to finally say goodbye to ice. Today, 49-year-old Katarina is a television commentator and businesswoman.

There have always been a lot of rumors about Katharina Witt's personal life. She was even credited with an affair with Erich Honecker, the state leader of the GDR. She has never been married and has no children. Among the "official" boyfriends were German musicians Ingo Politz and Rolf Brandel, as well as American actors Richard Dean Anderson and Danny Huston.

Photo: Vida Press

Kristi Yamaguchi is an American figure skater who won a gold medal at the 1992 Olympics in Albertville. She is a two-time world champion (1991, 1992). In 2005, Yamaguchi was inducted into the US Olympic Hall of Fame.

Christy was born in 1971 in Hayward, California, a fourth-generation representative of the Japanese diaspora in America. Her paternal grandparents and maternal great-grandparents immigrated to the United States from Japan. Yamaguchi's grandparents were in an internment camp during World War II, where her mother was born. Kristi Yamaguchi began riding as a child as therapy for her clubfoot.

In juniors, Yamaguchi performed not only in singles, but also in pairs skating with Rudy Galindo. In 1988 she became the world champion among juniors in both singles and pairs skating. Yamaguchi is the first woman to win first place at the US Championships in singles and pairs. As a couple, Christy and Rudy were unusual in that they both competed in singles, and also jumped and spun in different directions: Yamaguchi counter-clockwise and Galindo clockwise.

Photo: AP/Scanpix

In 1996, Yamaguchi founded the Always Dream Foundation for children. In addition, the ex-skater wrote three books, including “Figure Skating for Dummies,” and starred in three films as herself.

In 2008, Kristi Yamaguchi won the ABC television competition "Dancing with the Stars", becoming the second woman in the history of the competition to win it. And before that, together with the Disson company, she was the organizer of the ice show “Kristi Yamaguchi Show”.

Since 2000, Christie has been married to NHL player Bret Hediken. They have two daughters - Keara Kiemi (born 2003) and Emma Yoshiko (born 2005).

Photo: AP/Scanpix

One of the most famous sports dramas played out between two American figure skaters - Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan, who competed with each other for a place in the US team before the 1994 Olympics in Lillehammer.

The widely reported attack on Kerrigan took place during training before competing at the US Championships in Detroit on January 6, 1994. Shane Stant, instigated by Jeff Gillooly (Tony Harding's ex-husband) and his friend Shawn Eckardt, was supposed to break Nancy's right leg so that she would not be able to compete.

Stant was unable to find Kerrigan at a skating rink in Massachusetts, so he followed her to Detroit, where he struck her in the thigh several inches above the knee with a police baton. He only bruised Nancy’s leg, not broke it, but this injury forced the athlete to refuse to participate in the national championship.

Holding her knee and wailing “Why, why, why,” Nancy was caught on camera. The video remained top news on all television channels for several days after the attack.

Harding won the US Championships and both of them, along with Kerrigan, made the Olympic team: the American Figure Skating Federation decided to include Nancy on the team instead of second place Michelle Kwan.

After Tonya admitted that she knew about the impending attack, the US Figure Skating Association and the US National Olympic Committee initiated proceedings to remove Harding from the team, but she retained her place by threatening to start a lawsuit.

Kerrigan recovered quickly and began intense training. The news that Nancy was back to normal after the attack and ready to continue her professional career led to her signing a new $9.5 million contract before the Olympics even began.

The attack on Kerrigan and news of Harding's alleged involvement caused a media storm. Hundreds of members of the press stampeded on the training rink in Norway, and the broadcast of the short program at the 1994 Olympics became one of the most watched television broadcasts in American history.

In Lillehammer, Harding finished eighth, and Nancy Kerrigan, who had fully recovered from injury, won the silver medal. At the same time, at these games an incident occurred with Harding herself: the lace of her skate suddenly broke before going on the ice to perform a free program.

Photo: Reuters/Scanpix

Nancy Kerrigan (born 1969) is a two-time Olympic medalist (1992 bronze and 1994 silver), two-time world championship medalist (1991, 1992) and 1993 US champion.

After the 1994 Olympics, Kerrigan ended her amateur career and competed in several professional competitions, but soon decided to focus on various ice shows. She has performed in Champions on Ice, Broadway on Ice and the ice version of the musical Footloose.

Nancy played a small role in the film "Blades of Glory: Stars on Ice", took part in the television show "Skating with Celebrities", hosted the program Nancy Kerrigan's World of Skating, and was a commentator at the 2010 Olympics.

In 2003, Kerrigan became a representative of the Fight for Sight organization, and in 2004 she was inducted into the US Figure Skating Hall of Fame. She has written a textbook on modern figure skating techniques, "Artistry on Ice", and created The Nancy Kerrigan Foundation to raise awareness and support for the visually impaired.

In 1995, Nancy Kerrigan married her agent Jerry Lawrence Solomon, who is 16 years older than her. They have three children: Matthew Eric (born 1996), Brian (born 2005), and Nicole Elizabeth (born 2008). Nancy's father died in 2010 after a fight with his son: Nancy's brother was convicted of manslaughter.

Photo: AP/Scanpix

Tonya Maxine Harding (born 1970) won the 1991 US Championships and finished second at the World Championships. She was also fourth at the 92 Olympics and eighth at the 94 Olympics. Tonya became the second woman in history and the first American to land a triple Axel in competition, but is better known as the champion who injured her competitor's leg.

Tonya married Jeff Gillooly in 1990 when she was 19 years old. Their stormy marriage ended in 1993. As mentioned above, Harding rose to fame after her ex-husband Jeff Gillooly conspired with Shawn Eckardt and Shane Stant to attack Nancy Kerrigan.

After it was recognized that Harding, along with her ex-husband Jeff Gillooly, tried to cripple Kerrigan, Tonya was removed from participation in the national championship and was banned from amateur figure skating. And Jeff Gillooly was sentenced to two years in prison. The scandal in which the athlete was involved reached its peak when photographs from the couple's first wedding night were sold to Penthouse magazine.

Tonya Harding avoided jail after pleading guilty to conspiring with her attackers to prevent their prosecution. She received three years probation, 500 hours of community service and a fine of $160,000.

Harding was forced to leave the amateur ice, but among the pros she became “persona non grata.” She has long maintained her innocence in the attack and said she is disgusted by it. As a sign of this, she got a tattoo of an angel on her back.

In her 2008 autobiography, The Tony Papers, Harding claims she wanted to call the FBI and report everything, but changed her mind when Gillooly allegedly threatened to kill her after raping her at gunpoint.

Harding's name continued to make headlines, but now news of her domestic quarrels and car accidents appeared in the media. In 2002, a boxing match between Tonya Harding and Paula Jones was staged for television. Scandalist Paula Jones accused Bill Clinton of sexual harassment.

In 2002, in the biography of Tonya Harding, she was imprisoned for 10 days for driving while intoxicated. In 2003, Tonya tried herself in professional boxing. In six fights, she won three times, but refused further fights due to asthma.

In 2004, she signed a contract for one game with the Indianapolis Ice of the Major Hockey League, and a few years later she decided to try herself in freestyle fighting, but also without much success. In 2010, she married Joseph Jens Price.

Photo: Vida Press

Oksana Baiul is a Soviet and Ukrainian figure skater, born in 1977 in Dnepropetrovsk. Olympic champion-94, world champion-1993 and two-time champion of Ukraine (1993, 1994). The first and only Olympic champion in figure skating in the history of Ukraine.

Oksana's parents divorced in 1980, when she was 2 years old. After that, the daughter was raised by her mother, who died in 1991, when Oksana was 13 years old. Oksana became an orphan and was taken in by Galina Zmievskaya, a leading Odessa figure skating coach.

Baiul’s sports career is filled with funny and dramatic situations. At the 1994 Olympics, during training before the free program, figure skater Shevchenko from Germany collided with her, injuring her shin with a skate. Baiul was given stitches and given painkiller injections.

The Ukrainian, overcoming the pain, performed her free program. After grading her technique, Oksana had a nervous breakdown. With intense competition, the outcome of the competition was decided by one vote of the German judge, who placed Baiul second in the short program, and changed his mind in the free program and gave her first place. 16-year-old Baiul became the only Ukrainian Olympic champion in Lillehammer.

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After the 1994 Games, Baiul moved to live in the United States, while maintaining Ukrainian citizenship, and competed professionally. She had an accident, suffered from alcoholism, and went through rehabilitation. Now she continues to perform and is engaged in business, and has published two books in English.

She left the ice in 2001, but returned to professional sports in 2005. In 2010, she returned to Ukraine and entered the Drahomanov National Pedagogical University in Kyiv.

Oksana was Orthodox until she discovered her Jewish roots through her mother in 2003. “Being Jewish is very cool. It’s so natural, like a second skin,” Baiul once said. Engaged to a Jewish man, she said she was thrilled to discover that she and her betrothed shared the same faith.

In February 2013, 36-year-old Baiul sued American broadcaster NBC Universal and its associated production company, demanding $5 million in damages to her reputation.

In the fall of 2013, the ex-skater sued the William Morris agency, which previously handled her affairs, in New York state court, demanding more than $400 million in compensation for the damage allegedly caused to her. The suit says the agency used her youth and poor English skills to defraud her of millions of dollars after winning the 1994 Olympics.

Photo: Vida Press

American Tara Lipinski (born 1982) - champion of the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, world champion 1997, US champion 1997. The youngest champion of the Winter Olympic Games in history in the individual discipline: she won gold at the age of 15 years. In 2006, Tara was inducted into the US Figure Skating Hall of Fame.

In figure skating, victories for teenagers will not surprise anyone. However, compared to her competitors, Lipinski still looked like a child. She lacked artistry, but she managed the most difficult jumps. Already at the age of 12, Tara won the American Olympic Festival, at 13 she made her debut at the World Championships, and at the age of 14 she became the world champion. There has never been, nor will there ever be, such a young champion in figure skating, since the International Skating Union has since introduced age restrictions.

Photo: RIA Novosti/Scanpix

A couple of years after Nagano, Tara won the world championship among professionals, but then a hip injury began to make itself felt. At the age of 19, after a fall during the Stars on Ice show in St. Louis, another relapse occurred, and Lipinski decided to leave the big sport.

But she did not sit idly by, but chose an acting profession, focusing on American television shows. Interestingly, in twenty of them she played herself.

The aspiring actress successfully worked in the drama series Touched by an Angel, appeared in episodes of the series Arliss, Morning Edition, and 7th Heaven, participated in the family comedy series Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and had episodic roles in the films Screech. Well, a very scary movie,” “Veronica’s Salon,” “The Young and the Restless.”

Also in Tara Lipinski's track record are the series "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" and "Malcolm in the Middle", the films "Vanilla Sky" (2001), "Still Standing" (2001), "Subway Chase" (2003).

Tara Lipinski's film career remained in supporting roles, although there were also leading roles. For example, in 2000, in the comedy drama directed by George Ershbeimer "The Ice Angel". And in 2002, Tara Lipinski took part in the dubbing of the animated film “Scooby-Doo.”

At the same time, Lipinski does not consider himself a public person. As soon as the opportunity arises, she happily becomes a snail and “hides” in her house.

Now 32-year-old Tara is engaged in charity work and helping children. Last year, she distributed titles at the Miss Universe 2013 beauty pageant. And in October 2013, she became an analytical observer for the American television company NBC and will now attend the Olympics in Sochi.

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American Sarah Hughes (born 1985) is the 2002 Olympic champion and bronze medalist at the 2001 World Figure Skating Championships. In 2005 she was included in the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.

Sarah surprised the whole world when she won gold at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. She was only 16 years old then. In addition, the athlete had never won the US or World Championships before. In fourth place after the short program, Sarah delivered a flawless long performance. In this way, she beat out such star figure skaters as world champion Michelle Kwan, Russian Irina Slutskaya, and young American Sasha Cohen.

Photo: Vida Press

Photo: RIA Novosti/Scanpix

Japanese Shizuka Arakawa (born 1981) is the 2006 Olympic champion in Turin and the 2004 world champion. Shizuka became the first Japanese figure skater to win an Olympic competition and the second Japanese figure skater to win gold in any sport at the Winter Olympics. Her medal was the only one in the collection of the Japanese team at the 2006 Olympics.

In 2004, a Japanese figure skater who worked with Russian coach Tatyana Tarasova won the world championship. And two years later in Turin, Arakawa skated her free program flawlessly, managing to get ahead of the American Sasha Cohen and the Russian Irina Slutskaya.

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After winning the Olympic Games in 2006, Shizuka Arakawa ended her amateur career. Later, the ex-skater performed in ice shows and demonstration performances, taught choreography, and also worked as a sports commentator on Japanese television.

And in 2013, at a wedding fashion exhibition in Tokyo, 32-year-old Arakawa appeared as a model to demonstrate an wedding dress from Japanese designer Ginza Tanaka. The dress, decorated with 502 diamonds and a thousand pearls, costs $8.3 million: it is the most expensive wedding dress in the world.

Photo: RIA Novosti/Scanpix

In November 2006, she announced the end of her sports career. In 2000, she received a diploma from the Academy of Physical Culture in Moscow, but did not try herself as a coach. In 2006, Slutskaya graduated from television presenter courses.

In 2006, Slutskaya was the TV presenter of the projects “Stars on Ice” and “Ice Age”. In 2008, she took part in the same project as a participant, partnering with ballet choreographer Gedeminas Taranda. In 2009, she returned to the role of host of the show, together with Anastasia Zavorotnyuk.

She starred in one of the roles in the series about figure skating "Hot Ice", and acted as the main skater in the Russian version of the show "Winx on Ice". In 2011, Slutskaya was awarded the status of Ambassador of the XXII Winter Olympic Games in Sochi. Since October 2011, he has been presenting sports news on Channel One.

In 2012 she was the host of the show “Ice Age. Professional Cup”, and in 2014 she appeared in it as a participant. According to her, “as a presenter, I already feel like a professional to some extent, but as a participant it’s incredibly interesting to discover some new possibilities in myself, to create new images.”

In 1999, Irina married Sergei Mikheev. In 2007 she gave birth to a son, Artem, and in 2010, a daughter, Varvara.

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American figure skater Michelle Kwan, like Russian Slutskaya, failed to become an Olympic champion, but for many years she was also a trendsetter in figure skating.

Michelle Wingshan Kwan (born 1980) - two-time Olympic medalist (silver in Nagano 1998 and bronze in Salt Lake City 2002), five-time world champion (1996, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2003) (second only to Sonya Henie's record) and nine-time US champion (1996, 1998-2005) (absolute record, same as Maribel Vinson-Owen). Michelle Kwan's eight consecutive national titles and 12 consecutive national championship medals are U.S. records.

California-born Michelle is a descendant of Chinese immigrants from Hong Kong. As a child, she spoke a mixture of Cantonese and English at home, and also speaks some colloquial Mandarin.

Michelle Kwan competed at the highest level for a decade and is the most decorated figure skater in American history. Known for her tenacity and expressive artistry on the ice, she is considered by many to be one of the greatest figure skaters of all time.

For over a decade, Michelle Kwan maintained her position as not only the most popular figure skater in America, but also the most popular American female athlete.

Kwan is a recipient of the prestigious James E. Sullivan Award, which is given to the top amateur athlete in the United States. She was the first figure skater to receive this award since Dick Button, who was awarded in 1949.

Photo: Reuters/Scanpix