Rodnina, Irina Konstantinovna

Irina Konstantinovna Rodnina was born on September 12, 1949 in Moscow . Father - Konstantin Nikolaevich Rodnin, a military officer, originally from the village of Yanino, located near Vologda , and now absorbed by the city. Mother - Julia Yakovlevna, from Ukraine, studied before the Great Patriotic War at the medical institute in Kharkov, she studied for three courses; nurse. Irina Konstantinovna’s parents met during the Great Patriotic War, “mothers have more military orders than their father’s. Maybe because mom before he, faced with the war. They not only have many memories left of the war, but also the attitude to life itself was determined by it. In addition to relatives, our parents' fighting friends often stopped here as well ” ^[5] .

As a child, Irina had pneumonia eleven times, doctors advised more exercise, and best of all outdoors, so her parents brought her to the rink in 1954, to Pryamikov Culture Park . Then my father began to drive Irina to Zhdanovsky Park (there were more skating rinks there), and her mother wrote Irina to the section. The first children's trainer I. Rodnina was Jacob Smushkin ^[6] . Coach Zinaida Podgornaya suggested that parents send Irina to the Dzerzhinsky Park in Marina Grove . Then, after watching, Irina got into the CSKA skaters section (1960 ^[7] ), and acted as a single player for up to 15 years. Since 1962, her coaches have been the Czechs Sonya and Miloslav Balun ^[8] , who worked under a contract with CSKA, and Rodin took the third place in 1963 in a pair with Oleg Vlasov Rodnina.

Under the leadership of S. A. Zhuk

Since 1964, S. A. Zhuk has become a coach, putting Rodnin together with A. Ulanov . In December 1966, they debuted at the first international tournament - “Moscow Skates”, and in the next season 1967/68 the couple became one of the leaders in figure skating in the USSR , in December they won the “Moscow Skates” tournament, in January 1968 they took the third a place in the USSR Championship (the first short program is for the Moldavian melody “Lark”), after which the pair enters the national team. At the first European Championships after the short program - the third, but the arbitrary was performed poorly (5th place). S. A. Zhuk increasingly complicates the program, including in it for the first time in the history of pair skating a parallel jump double axel and a combination of jumps. At the Moscow Skates tournament, the pair is second, and at the USSR Championship in January 1969, in the sharpest struggle, it ranks third. The couple arrives at the 1969 European Championship without a coach ^[9] (S.A. Zhuku was banned from leaving), but caused a sensation, and despite the second place in the obligatory program, where the couple lost L. Belousova - O. Protopopov , ultimately takes the first place is due to more complex elements and the high rate of execution of an arbitrary program, with 8 judges out of 9 given the first place. Rodnina receives the title Honored Master of Sports of the USSR .

At the 1969 World Championships, the Rodnina-Ulanov pair win already behind a clear advantage, winning both types of competitions, receiving all the first places from the judges. In 1970, at the USSR Championship in Kiev , Rodnina-Ulanov extremely unfortunately rolled the mandatory program, with two gross errors ^[10] , taking in this form only the 8th place. However, after a purely arbitrary program, they won (Belousova - Protopopov, who were the first to go, but turned out to be only the fourth, later declared a judicial conspiracy ^[11] ). Rodnina - Ulanov continued to win all the competitions in which they participated, but by 1972 the rivalry with the second Soviet pair of L. Smirnov - A. Suraykin became more acute. At the Olympics-72 in the short program Ulanov instead of the obligatory double Salkhov made a single, in an arbitrary Rodnina made a mistake on the cascade of jumps, as a result, Smirnov - Suraikin were ahead of only two votes of the judges. For the victory at the Olympics-72 Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor . The day before the 1972 World Cup in training, Irina fell from support, got to the hospital with a concussion and intracranial hematoma. The couple skated a short program cleanly, getting grades up to 6.0, in an arbitrary Irina felt unwell, completed the program in a faint state. After the World Cup, the couple broke up (Ulanov, being married to Smirnova ^[12] , is paired with her). Rodnina seriously thought about leaving the big sport ^[8] , the USSR Championship in April 1972 looked from the stands.

With a new partner

From April 1972, C. A. Zhuk suggested that Rodnina get together with the young Leningrad skater Alexander Zaitsev . In September 1972, a new pair of I. Rodnin, A. Zaitsev, appeared for the first time on demonstration performances in Zaporizhia .

Zaitsev, who possessed good jumping techniques, very quickly mastered all the complex elements. Mutual understanding, consistency in the new pair is noticeably higher than in the previous one, which was immediately noted by the judges - at the 1973 European Championship in Cologne , Rodnin - Zaitsev beat Smirnov - Ulanov by the unanimous opinion of all 9 judges and caused a furore. In the short program, where the judges mark every error, the couple received eight marks of 5.9 and three 6.0 (one judge gave both marks of 6.0 both for the elements and for the presentation). The random program of the pair was skated at high speed, with almost absolute synchrony and without a single error. The judges were so shocked by the performance that one of them gave both marks 5.9, four gave 5.9 and 6.0, and four judges even gave both marks 6.0 (for technique and for artistry). Thus, the couple received a record of 12 ratings of 6.0 out of 18 possible ^[13] .

At the 1973 World Championships in Bratislava ( Czechoslovakia ) an incident occurred that went down in history of figure skating. There was a closure in the radio room, the sound was disconnected during the Rodnina-Zaitsev free program (it later turned out that the closure was deliberately organized by a Czech officer, who was thus trying to avenge the USSR for suppressing the Prague Spring in 1968 ^[14] ). Coach S. A. Zhuk from behind the side instructed to continue the program, and the couple skated off without music to the applause of the hall. Referee Karl Enderlin, noting the couple’s “will to win” ^[15] , nonetheless instructed to lower marks due to skating without music (the couple refused to perform the program at the end of the competition), which is why not a single score of 6.0 was not exposed. This is how Irina Konstantinovna describes her performance in Bratislava, while pointing out that the night before, when she had a program in mind, she also had (as will be at the competitions tomorrow) the music was gone, and at the competitions themselves:

“When the music stopped, I understood what to do next. <...> Beetle <...> we began to make signs: they say, continue. I still saw the referee - whether the Austrian, or Swiss. I remember that he spoke Russian. He whistled all the time, trying to stop us, but we already <...> went right through. Beetle - the footage on television remained - all the time we were shown us to continue to ride. The audience was silent. Silence is complete. The music stopped in the middle of the program when I was upstairs in support. There are three jumps and the fourth climb was up. At the moment of the ascent, when I was already somewhere at the level of Zaytsev’s shoulder, the music stopped. We made support by inertia, left it and slipped past the Beetle. If he had shouted something to me, he probably would have knocked off the traffic, but he didn’t shout anything <...>

And we rushed on, ran along the judges, which is why I saw that the referee was knocking on the side. Further combination of jumps, everything is still in absolute silence. And only when we finished this combination did the audience applaud us. But for nine or twelve seconds a huge hall - and silence! We only hear the crunch of our skates on the ice. We started the slow part <...> And the audience has already ricocheted, started to applaud and shout <...>

We finished the program to the end, and I drove up to the referee. He speaks to me in Russian: “Will you deduct the rental or will you come out again at the end? Or from the middle, from the moment where the music stopped? “I:“ No, I will not be showing a random one for the second time. ” <...> The hall roars, there is a live broadcast to the whole world. The music didn’t stop at our fault. ^[16] "

At the World Championships on March 5, 1974, Irina made a mistake in the tempo short program to the music of Jan Frenkel “Pursuit”. ^[17] . In the free program, an uncertain speech followed again, after which Rodnina said: “It was just bad.” ^[18] ) Hall disappointedly met the assessment, and the Soviet judge Valentine Piseev put 6.0.

In 1974 she graduated from the Central Institute of Physical Culture ^[19] .

Under the direction of TA A. Tarasova

By 1974, the relationship of the couple and the trainer Beetle became complicated. The reasons are sometimes indicated the most opposite: Rodnina, in particular, said that she had become more independent and “tired of the behavior of the Beetle” ^[12] . And skaters from October 1974, on their own initiative, go over to the young coach - T.A. Tarasova , who treated her students on an equal footing, rather as a partner in a common cause. In addition, Tarasova tried to bring more artistic expression to skating, already in the first season of 1974/75, putting a short program on the music of Aleksey Mazhukov .

At the World Championships in 1975, Rodnina collided with U. Kagelmann during a warm-up before the free skate program . The pair decided to refuse one support, however, the judges again unanimously gave the pair 1st place, with ratings up to 6.0.

In 1975, Rodnina became a member of the CPSU . The wedding of Rodnina and Zaitsev (1975) was widely celebrated, and US TV came to the set.

Before the Olympics-76 in Innsbruck, A. Zaitsev “overtrained”, the excitement also affected, and after a purely executed short program in an arbitrary program, several mistakes were made (including Zaitsev touched his hand when landing with a double axel), but the triple flip . All the judges gave the first places, 10 marks 5.9 and 8 - 5.8 (some viewers booed the marks). Both programs were put on gypsy and Moldovan melodies. At the 1977 World Championships , a short program (set to music by Vasily Solovyov-Sedoy for the film “ First Glove ”) and an arbitrary program were cleanly performed. Soviet judge Valentin Piseev was the only one who gave a mark of 6.0, after which the referee S. Bianchetti initiated the dismissal of all Soviet judges for the whole season (1977/78) ^{[ clarify ]} .

In the free program 1977/1978 Tarasova included two supports with a change of hand, a butterfly jump, performed by partners holding hands, a descent from support, other original elements. The couple missed the 1978/1979 season due to the birth of their son Alexander on February 23, 1979 . The missed World Championship in 1979 was won by Babilonia - Gardner ( USA ) with a 2 votes advantage, after which in the 1979/80 season the Americans staged a pressure campaign on Rodnina - Zaitsev, accusing them of forbidden elements, up to the demands to arrange a press conference with repentance ^{[ 20]} . The dispute was caused by support at the hip level, where the partner is holding the partner’s leg (and not the hip, waist or arm), but this support was not one of the required elements, so the judges did not consider it prohibited and did not lower the ratings at either the European Championship or at the 1980 Olympics.

At the 1980 Olympic Games in Lake Placid, on February 15, in a short program to N.Rimsky-Korsakov's music in modern processing, all 7 mandatory elements were completely clean, including double- flip jump, hip support, paired and parallel rotation (synchronous and at high speed), a walk of steps. Extremely high-amplitude todes performed, with a span, good tension, in a low position. All the judges gave the first places, setting ratings of 5.8-5.9, except for the American (5.7 / 5.7). On February 17, in the free program to the music of G. Sviridov and A. Pakhmutova, the pure performance of the double Axel jump and triple back-up was of decisive importance - these were the most difficult and obligatory elements among all the participants. Eight supports were performed, including four different supports above the head: a press and three lasso (jagged, step-in and axel), a todes and two cascades of jumps. The pair again received all nine first places from the judges with ratings of 5.8-5.9. As a result, 30-year-old Rodnina (paired with Zaitsev) won a historic third victory at the Olympics. Her tears went down in history [1] during the awards ceremony.

As a result, Rodnina became the most successful figure skater in the history of pair skating: three-time Olympic champion, ten-time (1969-1978) world champion, eleven-fold (1969-1978, 1980) European champion and six-time (1970-1971, 1973-1975, 1977) USSR champion , in 1969-1980, without losing a single competition in which she participated with partners.

The explanation of such a long series of victories in all competitions can give at least one example: in one of the most intense programs in the history of figure skating - the arbitrary 1974/75 season, Rodnin-Zaitsev performed over 30 elements, a number of which were many years ahead of the development of pair skating , including 6 complex supports (in one partner’s descent went through a coup, while entering another, several partner’s jumps followed, holding each other’s hands, the third consisted of three turns on one hand), in addition to them another 4 were made hip support, 4 cascades (one of four jumps, one with a unique axel with landing on the same leg, another one consisted of a complex double axel and through a triple double salchow), a complicated entry on the todes backwards out carried out from a spiral, after which the partner changed her leg, on a double spin, the partner lifted the partner twice into the air so that she changed the leg 2 times, as well as two twists - a triple Lutz and an axel in two and a half turns. In addition, many connecting “elements between elements” - original spirals, steps, etc. The program was executed at a tremendous speed, and only synchronously.

All this struck the imagination of the judges, who unanimously gave the pair first places in terms of the sum of marks, and the absolute nine first places out of nine possible pairs were given both for short and for arbitrary programs during 1973-1980.

Sports Achievements

(with A. Ulanov)

(with A. Zaitsev)

Awards and titles

• Order "For Services to the Fatherland" III degree ( 1999 )
• Order of Merit for the Fatherland, IV degree ( 2009 ) ^[21]
• Order of Friendship (2016) ^[22]
• Order of Lenin (05/10/1976)
• 2 Orders of the Red Banner of Labor (03/03/1972; 09/04/1980 ^[23] )
• Medal "For Labor Valor" (05/30/1969)
• medal "To the participant of the military operation in Syria" ( 2016 ) ^[24]
• Bronze Olympic Order ^[25]
• Twice winner of the National award of public recognition of the achievements of women of Russia "Olympia" for 2002 and 2003 ^[26]
• Winner of the "Russian Year" ( 2005 ) in the nomination "Triumphant" ^[26]
• Honorary Doctor of Saint-Petersburg State Unitary Enterprise since 2015

Coaching work. Social activities

After finishing her amateur career, Rodnina worked in the Komsomol Central Committee , then as a senior trainer (for example, V. Pershin’s couples - M. Akbarov ) in the Dynamo society, and taught at the Institute of Physical Education .

The author of the book "Rough Ice" ( 1978 ).

In 1990-2002 she lived in the United States , worked as a coach of the international center of figure skating (in , near Los Angeles ). In 1995, her students Radka Kovarzhikova - Rene Novotny became world champions (Rodnina was given honorary citizenship of the Czech Republic), helped to prepare Michel Kwan and Angela Nikodinov .

Since 2005 Rodnina has been the author of the program on Radio Russia - “Stadium”.

In 2006 she was a member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation ^[19] .

Negatively evaluates the new system of refereeing ^[20] .

On June 28, 2005, her signature appeared under a letter in support of the verdict to the former Yukos executives ^[27] .

On September 11, 2009, Rodnina denied signing a letter in support of the conviction to Mikhail Khodorkovsky. ^[28]

He is a member of the presidium of the All-Russian public organization " League of Nation Health ". ^[29]

He is the chairman of the central council of the All-Russian public organization "All-Russian Voluntary Society" Sports Russia "" ^[19] .

Political and government activities

IK Rodnina twice, in the elections of 2003 and by-election in 2004, put forward her candidacy to the State Duma of the Russian Federation , but suffered a defeat ^{[30] [31]} .

In December 2007, Rodnina was elected to the State Duma of the 5th convocation on the list of “ United Russia ” from the Omsk Region . In the Duma, she took the post of deputy chairman of the education committee. In December 2011, Rodnina was again re-elected, becoming a State Duma deputy of the VI convocation on the list of "United Russia" from the Omsk Region ^[30] . In the State Duma of the VI convocation, he is a member of the Committee for the Affairs of the Commonwealth of Independent States and Relations with Compatriots, and is a member of the United Russia faction ^[32] .

He is a member of the Council under the President of the Russian Federation on Physical Culture and Sport ^[19] .

In United Russia, Rodnina leads the inner-party projects “Yard Trainer”, “School Sport” and “Russia: we must live long” ^[19] .

February 7, 2014, together with Vladislav Tretyak, lit the Olympic flame at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Sochi .

July 19, 2018 voted for raising the retirement age ^[33] .

Scandals

In January 2013, Rodnina’s comment on the opposition action against the so-called “ law named after Dima Yakovlev ” caused a wide resonance, the participants of which carried through the city portraits of deputies who supported the law, who were then thrown into the trash can. Rodnina expressed disappointment at the fact that her photograph “was carried not by a bright personality of the“ ops ”, but as they say in Moscow: the aunt from the queue” ^{[34] [35] [36]} .

In September 2013, it became known that Rodnina posted a photo collage in her Twitter account, in which dark-skinned Barack Obama and his spouse are depicted against the background of a banana , regarded by some of the society as racist . In response to criticism, Rodnina referred to freedom of speech and noted that her “rating went up”, but after a while removed the collage ^{[37] [38] [39] [40]} . Six months later, on February 10, 2014, Rodnina reported that her Twitter account had been hacked. She apologized for not having clarified earlier that she did not support racism in any form ^[41] .

In March 2018, Irina Rodnina, along with her colleagues in the State Duma Ethics Commission, heard explanations ^{[42] of} journalists Farida Rustamova and Darya Zhuk, who accused deputy Leonid Slutsky of harassment ^[43] . Members of the commission did not find “violations of behavioral norms” ^[44] in the actions of Leonid Slutsky. This decision led to a boycott of the State Duma in a number of publications ^[45] .

• father - Konstantin Nikolaevich Rodnin (died 2000)
• mother - Yulia Yakovlevna Rodnina (died 1991), doctor
• older sister - Valentina Konstantinovna, a mathematician engineer
• 1st husband (since 1975, rav. 1985) - sports partner Alexander Zaitsev
  • son - Alexander Zaitsev (born February 23, 1979), ceramic artist
    • granddaughter - Sonya
• 2nd husband (from 1985, 1992) - businessman, film producer Leonid Minkovsky
  • daughter - Alyona Minkovskaya (born 1986) journalist ^{[46] [47]} .

• Irina Rodnina. [Photo essay]. - M .: Physical Culture and Sport , 1977. - 48 p. - (Heroes of the Olympic Games).
• Irina Rodnina. Rough ice. - M .: True , 1978. - 64 p. - (Library Twinkle).
• Rodnina I. K., Zaitsev A. G. Olympic orbit. - M .: Physical Culture and Sport , 1984. - 302 p. - ( Hearts, given to the sport ).
• Irina Rodnina. Tear champion. - M .: Time , 2013. - 480 p. - (Dialogue).

• Irina Rodnina: every victory is dear Interview with the correspondent of the Europe-Express newspaper Mikhail Vereshchagin (December 2012).

• Rodnina Irina Konstantinovna's virtual reception room
• Alexander Golovin . Irina Rodnina: “My daughter has been living in America since 1990. What's the matter here? ” // Sports.ru , 04/02/2018
• Irina Rodnina on Twitter
• Rodnina, Irina - an article in Lentapedia . year 2012.