A few days earlier, one of the readers of my articles and a conference participant asked if I had read Irina Rodnina's new book “A Tear of a Champion” and, if so, what I thought of it. I honestly answered that I had not read either this or previous books by the named author.
Literally a few hours later, another conference participant sent me a book in electronic form, for which I am eternally grateful to her. For the next three days I read this book and for another three days I reread it, making notes. After that, the fingers reached for the pen and, not finding it, climbed onto the keyboard.
I want to immediately warn the reader that my attitude towards Irina Rodnina is by no means unambiguous. As a figure skater, using whom Stanislav Zhuk settled scores with the "Leningrad school" in the faces of Lyudmila Belousova and Oleg Protopopov and turned pair skating from an art into a craft, I have no special respect. Although, of course, Irina and Alexei Ulanov became not even pioneers, but pioneer leaders other style of pair skating, sports. As a courageous person, extremely industrious and, to the extent possible, independent - with great sympathy. I also liked Irina a little as a woman, and for almost forty years I have had a few of them at the side. Like a cunning woman who deftly let out a champion's crocodile tear while raising the Soviet flag and shouting slogans like: “I dedicate my record to you, Party!” - with distrust.
Not so long ago I read a funny story on the Internet: a six-year-old girl, covered in tears, angrily shouts to her four-year-old brother: “Give me the candy, it's not yours! I already ate yours!“ Isn’t it written with Rodnina?
But Olympic champions, and, moreover, three times, athletes with an angelic character do not become, so a positive attitude towards Rodnina prevails. Therefore, in the review of her new book, Tear of a Champion, I will try to be as objective as possible.
I'll start, perhaps, with the publishing nonsense called Abstract: Irina Rodnina, according to a VTsIOM poll in 2010, was included in the top ten idols of the 20th century in Russia - along with Gagarin, Vysotsky, Zhukov, Solzhenitsyn ... We have many great athletes, but people have not yet rated any of them so highly.
Some kind of pagan cult of idols and idols from Perun, Semargl, Veles and company. The Christian religion clearly teaches: Do not make yourself an idol.
Where, one might ask, is Partyarch Gundyaev looking? Yes, and VTsIOM, apparently, is revealed as the “All-Russian Center distortion public opinion“. This is not surprising, considering how the search site describes the tasks of this organization: “Research conducted as part of a monthly survey on a representative sample of the Russian population aged 18 years and older. Information about the level of fame parties, party leaders, etc.“
It was not Rodnina who wrote this, and it is not worth attributing this stupidest populization to her account. Read on.
The first words of the author - I wrote an honest book, so it's tough. Anyone who knows me well will not be surprised. I never gossiped about anyone behind the eyes and always spoke directly“. These words of Irina I am ready to confirm almost completely. "Almost" because the second chapter immediately unsettled me.
Mom without a name, without a patronymic, without a nationality
The chapter is called "Mom, Dad, Valya and I" and begins like this: " My father, Konstantin Nikolaevich Rodnin, is from Vologda. More precisely, from the village of Yanino, located right under Vologda. Now it is already absorbed by the city. When I was very young, they took me there to my grandmother. My father's sister, Aunt Nadya, still lives there…. And first of all, Valya, because she is the eldest ...“.
Neither here nor elsewhere in the book does Irina's mother have a first name, patronymic, or maiden name, and is referred to exclusively as "mother" everywhere.
Irochka Rodnina
Photo spletnik.ru
It is only known that she comes from Ukraine, cooks well, is musical and studied medicine. Dad has a full name, sister Valya and even Aunt Nadia have names, but mom doesn’t. What was the great figure skater embarrassed to tell about her mother? For what sins before her daughter her mother even died nameless - I quote: “Just a few weeks before the putsch, my mother died”. Grandmother and other relatives from my mother's side (Ira went to visit them in Ukraine) also remained in the book without family and tribe.
I thought for a long time and the only thing that came to my mind was the lines from the song of Alexander Galich: “Here he writes in his biography - Russian, / True, pure, at least put on display. / And he was born, by the way, in Bobruisk / And with his grandmother surname – Katz!“
I do not presume to condemn the true, pure, Russian athlete of peasant origin, Irina Rodnina, for the fact that in Soviet times she carefully concealed her, as it was called then, “disability of the fifth group.” Many Jews and half-Jews were written as Russians not out of a sense of anti-Semitism, but simply out of fear. Everyone knew perfectly well that it was almost impossible for a Jew or Jewess to break through to the very top, and they were allowed to go abroad only in the most exceptional cases. I also knew this, so on December 4, 1971, on the first and in last time left the USSR without a passport and without citizenship, but with a one-way visa "for permanent residence in the State of Israel."
I know many athletes, including figure skaters, who hide the "Jewish flaw" in their biographies. I remember how quite a long time ago, in 2000, in the article “Jews sew not only liveries” (about Jewish athletes), I called one charming figure skater Jewish. At the next championship, she appeared with a cross around her neck and proudly told me: “I am Russian!” She is still listed as Russian. Only Natalya Bestemyanova revealed her secret in an autobiographical book. But what prevented Rodnina from naming her mother by name and patronymic? in 2010, and how the fact of the cover-up fits in with her assurance that the book is honest? Let's leave the answer to this question on the conscience of the author. *)
Further reading of the book surprised me with illiteracy in writing names and titles. Here are some examples:
Coach Samson Glyazer, known to the entire older generation of skaters, is called Glaizer, figure skaters Yulia and Ardo Rennik are called Reiniki, coach Gennady Ackerman is Ackerman, the world-famous dance coach Igor Shpilband is called Shpilman, and no less than Shpilband, but the infamous Alla Shekhovtsova is called Shakhnovskaya.
The only students of Rodnina who have reached the European and world level are Radka Kovazhikova and Rene Novotny. In one place of the book they are Radka Kovarikova and Rene Novotny, in another they are Radka Kovarzhikova and Rene Novotny. As if written about different people.
There are no less errors in American names and titles.
The American figure skater Linda Fratienne was changed to Frontiani by the book. The famous ice show Ice Capades is called "Ice Capets" - it's still good that it's not "Ice Pesets", otherwise the Protopopovs would be ashamed to admit that they worked in this show. The town where Rodnina worked for 10 years is called Lake Arrowhead and is written in Russian as Lake Arrowhead, and Irina writes it “Lake Aerohett”, knowing that the name is translated as “Arrowhead Lake”. Aero is air, arrow is Arrow. Even if we assume that in childhood Rodnina did not read the books of Walter Scott, did she really not learn in 10 years English language at least at this level? The city of Memphis is named in the book as the capital of Arkansas. But in another book, about Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, which I read as a child, Mark Twain attributes Memphis to the state of Tennessee, and I tend to believe him more, a Native American.
Of course, we must not forget that Rodnina's stable education ended in the eighth grade of a school specialized in in-depth study of the German language. Ira got the rest on the run, between training and competitions. She writes about it herself. But she didn't write the book herself!
Although to call all four spirals "todes" - that is, spirals of death- only she could, and only to humiliate her main rivals, Lyudmila Belousova and Oleg Protopopov. In addition to the "spiral of death" that existed before them, Lyudmila and Oleg came up with three more, and called them the "Spiral of Life", "Spiral of Love" and "Cosmic Spiral", which Rodnina is well aware of. Under these names, the spirals of the Protopopovs are registered in International Union skaters. Today, no one in the world will be able to complete all four spirals - you won’t earn levels on them. You don’t need to reach a good level, but jump.
I asked Irina, who did the literary recording of the book for her? Was this person literate enough? It turned out that it was a very competent and very famous publicist Vitaly Melik-Karamov, who made literary records and books by Tatyana Tarasova "Beauty and the Beast", with whom he has been friends for a long time. Why, then, did he allow such a disgrace? By chance? I do not believe. By distraction? I will never believe. Hastily? But the manuscript lay in the publishing house for more than three years. So, in the publishing house itself, the editor of the book was a man who had never been interested in figure skating, who had never read books by foreign authors and Soviet newspapers. Or it was a person who deliberately skipped all the blunders in order to expose Rodnina in an unsightly light. Is it possible that someone asked the editor about this, about whom Irina spoke impartially in her book?
Always sins with subjectivity
In the address "From the author" Rodnina writes: “A story in the first person is always subjective. I see the situation in this way, but someone else who was involved may have a completely different view of the events I have described. I tried not to gloss over my memories, which is really very difficult. It is not easy to offend people who were around.“
I was not a participant in the events, but I was a witness to many things described in this book. I can testify that the majority of sports functionaries, starting with Piseev, deserved the characteristics given to them by Rodnina. I would even say that the same Piseev, Shekhovtsova-Shakhnovskaya and Tarasova, Irina Konstantinovna, just in case, “did not finish it”. But she writes about herself with such love and adoration that it seems: her best friend's name is not Oksana Pushkina, but Alla Velichiya. Most of all, I was amused by the lines in which Rodnina claims: Tamara Nikolaevna and Igor Borisovich Moskvins borrowed a lot from her. Did Moskvina's coaches borrow a lot from Zhuk's student and Tarasova? Fresh story....
Laughing, I remembered a similar incident. Salvador Dali wrote a memoir in which he did not speak well of his friend, Pablo Picasso. After some time, they met in Paris, and Picasso asked his friend what he had done to deserve an unflattering characterization. To which Dali calmly replied: “You see, Pablo, I wrote my memoirs not about you, but about myself.”
Rodnina also writes about herself, so there is nothing to complain about her. When a person like her is at the very top of a sports career, he gets what is called "dizzy with success." In this state, it was already difficult for Irina to distinguish a party congress (no matter which one: the CPSU, United Russia, or any other ruling party) from the congress of her own roof. Motherland, by the way, is no exception. For example, world champion Alexei Tikhonov, a very good figure skater, was modest until, due to his great physical strength, Ilya Averbukh put the most magnificent brisket and the heaviest ham of the so-called "stars" of Russian pop, cinema and TV into Tikhonov's muscular arms. . Having had enough of his fill, Alexey decided that he was an unsurpassed male, a handsome man, a talented film actor and a "star" of the first magnitude. I have already written about Evgeni Plushenko's cult of his own personality, while I am silent about Anton Sikharulidze.
It is a pity that, when listing in the “American” part of her biography the names of famous figure skaters whom she helped train at the request of their coaches, Irina did not tell about her brother and sister Stigler, American figure skaters whom she raised and herself brought to the level of world championships among juniors. Later, she seems to have given a couple to Alexander Zaitsev. I met Rodnina with the Stiglers at several tournaments, they were a very good sports couple. But most of the time, Rodnina in the USA worked not for a record, but for the cashier - like most Russian and Eastern European coaches from the USA, therefore, one should be very careful to count six American years in her professional experience as a coach in the usual Soviet sense. But the money she earned helped her raise her daughter and, especially, her son.
Rodnina returned to her homeland
Watching from the sidelines the collapse of the Soviet Union, where she was part of the nomenklatura, Rodnina realized that her future was in her past. It was time to return to Russia, where a certain category of the privileged population got a chance to earn a lot of money. But she was not going to go to the coaches, under the almost unlimited power of the same “Piseus the Permanent”, she was not going to. Having stood in California for six years on the ice, Rodnina wanted to sit down and relax. Sit down, of course, in a chair. Yes, not simple, but leading. No sooner said than done. Irina Konstantinovna mentions the stages of her long journey almost in detail in the book - the director of the "Palace of Irina Rodnina", a member of the International Olympic Committee, chairman Olympic Committee Russia. Neither there, nor there, nor there, Rodnina's candidacy was supported. Despite the fact that the tough businessmen who were supposed to build the “Palace” for her assured: a luxurious office with a sign on the massive door “Director – I.K. Rodnina has already been scheduled and the additional salary will be delivered to her monthly.
Photo pedsovet.su
The returnee had the opportunity to become the president of the FFKKR, but she did not dare to climb into the painfully familiar jungle of intrigues. In the end, old connections helped her become a deputy of the State Duma and get the coveted chair in " Sports Russia“. The October-pioneer-Komsomol member-Communist Rodnina, as one would expect, became a member of the ruling party.
The book ends with a life-affirming line:
“Is it time to take stock? If it has come, then the main one is this: it’s too early to sum up the results.
Is this book worth reading? The answer to this question is also not clear. The one who lives inside the Soviet, and after the collapse of the USSR, the Russian figure skating She won't be surprised by anything. All the events and facts mentioned in it are known. But for fans of figure skating, his fans and lovers to gnaw every fried fact to the bone, the book will give a lot interesting facts, which they still either did not know, or knew by rumor. And Rodnina writes from herself, that is, from the first person.
I ask only one thing. While reading, do not forget the Christian commandments, especially chapter 7 of the Gospel of Matthew: "You are not judged, that you be not judged." I informed Irina that I could not understand some passages of the new book that were absolutely not characteristic of her and would be forced to “go over them” in the review. Here is what she replied:
You have the right to write everything! For more than three years I did not give consent to the book, the contract expired, and the publishing house did IT: (((Edited by Melik-Karamov, you know, I'm not a writer :))))
Knowing Irina for almost 40 years, I believe her. Lies have never been her weapon. Maybe one of her many ill-wishers really wanted to set Rodnina up with the release of this book?
*) In the photo section of the book, mother is mentioned once by name and patronymic. Her name was Yulia Yakovlevna.
World copyright by Arthur Werner. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, printing, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author.
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Name: Irina Rodnina
Surname: Konstantinovna
Place of Birth: Moscow
Growth: 152 cm
The weight: 57 kg
Zodiac sign: Virgo
Eastern horoscope: Bull
Activity: figure skater, coach, politician
Irina Konstantinovna Rodnina - great Soviet athlete, which became famous for a long series of triumphant victories in European and world figure skating competitions, which raised the sport of Russia to an unprecedented height. She became 3 times Olympic champion, received 24 international gold medals, without losing a single competition from 1969 to 1980.
At the end of an incredible sports career, Irina worked in the Central Committee of the Komsomol, as a coach, teacher, radio host, and was engaged in social and state activities.
At the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the sports star, those present wanted to learn from her a mysterious secret eternal youth"Macropolusa", which Irina probably knows, since she, as before, remains a young soul, has an active life position, is full of strength, positiveness and sincerity. Rodnina herself perceived a decent date as her usual highest score of 6:0.
The future great figure skater was born in Moscow on September 12, 1949 in the family of a soldier and a nurse. My father was from the Vologda village of Yanino, my mother was a native of Ukraine. To improve the health of their daughter, who had had pneumonia 11 times by the age of 5, her parents chose ice skating.
First, they took their child to the skating rink in the Taganka Children's Park. N.N. Pryamikova, then - to the garden. Zhdanov in Sormovo. Irina's first teacher was Yakov Smushkin, who at that time was a figure skater himself. Under his strict guidance, she mastered the technique of sliding, the first spirals, jumps, spins and other mandatory elements on ice.
The girl became physically healthier and fell in love with skates. Having successfully passed the preview, the diligent and capable student entered CSKA. From the very beginning she was a single skater, then she skated with Oleg Vlasov.
In 1964, Stanislav Zhuk was the mentor of the 15-year-old athlete, and Alexey Ulanov was the partner. After 2 years, they already successfully performed on international competitions. In 1969, at the European Championships in Germany, the skaters became winners, despite the fact that they arrived at the tournament without their coach, since his trip abroad was banned.
At the World Championships, 5 years later, they again became the first, having earned approval, in the form of the maximum score, from all the judges. The next year was less successful for the athletes - mistakes were made at the national championship. However, thanks to the chic performance of the free part of the program, they retained their leadership.
In subsequent years, the couple continued to be the undisputed leader, in 1972 she received the gold of the Olympic Games in Sapporo.
On the eve of the 1972 World Cup in Canada, during training, Rodnina fell from high support. She suffered a severe head injury, but showed real courage by performing despite feeling unwell and winning first place.
But after the incident, the couple broke up - according to rumors, Ulanov allegedly dropped his partner on purpose, because he was married to Lyudmila Smirnova and wanted to perform with her, which he did later.
Having recovered from the injury, Irina began to ride with a new partner, Alexander Zaitsev from Leningrad. The figure skater noted the incredible feeling of reliability of the partner, and the judges - the unity of their actions and amazing consistency. At the European Championship in 1973, they won, beating, by the way, a pair of Smirnov-Ulanov.
At the World Cup of the same year, a pair of Rodnina-Zaitsev were again in the lead. And they performed in extreme conditions- in the middle of the program, the musical accompaniment was turned off for technical reasons.
In 1974, the skater graduated from the State Central Institute of Physical Education. In October, the famous couple had a coach change. There were several versions of what happened - from the growth of the independence of the figure skater to the unwillingness to endure the behavior of Stanislav Zhuk.
Together with the new mentor Tatyana Tarasova, who brought more creative imagination to the performance of the masters, Rodnina and Zaitsev won the 1975 World Cup.
At the Olympic Games a year later, they again won gold medals. Season 1978-79 the skaters missed, for family reasons: in February 1979, they had a son.
But soon the couple started training again. Third Olympic victory Irina in 1980 was very memorable and touched by the audience, because of the tears that she could not hold back during the performance of the anthem of the Soviet Union at the medal ceremony.
After finishing the performances, the athlete for some time was an employee of the apparatus of the Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, was busy with coaching and teaching activities.
In the period from 1990 to 2002, at the invitation of the International Figure Skating Center, Irina worked in America. There she, despite her problems associated with a divorce from her second spouse, was able to gain a reputation as an excellent specialist. This circumstance became especially noticeable when her pupils - Kovarzhikova-Navotny - became world champions.
Arriving again in Moscow, the figure skater took part in various television programs, was active in social activities - she was a member of the presidium of the League of Nation's Health, the head of the All-Russian Voluntary Society Sports Russia.
In 2003 and a year later, Irina wanted to become a deputy of the State Duma, but she was defeated in the elections. Two years later, she took a seat in the Public Chamber of Russia.
In 2007, Irina became a deputy of the State Duma of the 5th convocation from United Russia, taking the post of deputy chairman of the education committee. After another 4 years, she again became a member of the State Duma, becoming a member of the Committee on CIS Affairs.
For the first time, Irina Rodnina married her figure skating partner Alexander Zaitsev. Since 1972, they began to train together, and after winning the 1975 World Cup, young people legalized their relationship. Moreover, even American television arrived at the grandiose wedding of athletes.
In their marriage on February 23, 1979, Alexander Jr. was born, who later became an artist. Until 1997, he lived and worked in America, and then came to Moscow. In 2008, the son gave his famous parents a granddaughter Sofia.
Irina and Alexander were together for 8 years and maintained friendly relations. However, the couple broke up after the end of their sports career. Everyone had their own vision of the future.
Irina's second husband was Leonid Minkovsky, a businessman from Dnepropetrovsk, a film producer. Their daughter Alena was born in 1986. She is not married. Lives in Washington, is a correspondent.
The couple moved to America, since in Russia there was no work for Irina after the decree, and in the States she was able to train new "champions".
Irina said that, living in the USA with her husband and two children, she always experienced a lack of communication, language and culture. A few years after the move, they broke up. As noted in some media, the husband went to her friend.
Rodnina is included in the Guinness Book of Records as a figure skater who has never lost in international competitions. She has a large number of awards, including the Order of Lenin, the Red Banner of Labor, "For Merit to the Fatherland."
Earlier, Rodnina said that she did not plan to marry again. But more recently, her friendship with Dr. Pavel Niderman has grown into a strong feeling.
In 2010, the famous and most famous figure skater in the world, according to a VTsIOM survey, entered the top 10 idols of the twentieth century in Russia - along with such outstanding personalities as Gagarin, Solzhenitsyn, Vysotsky.
She is a member of the Council for Physical Culture and Sports under the President, oversees a number of sports projects.
Working in the State Duma, she is engaged in children's and youth sports, leads a large number of specialized projects, making trips to all corners of the country. In 2013, she opened the season in Omsk ice palace her name, where they train locals from 3 years old.
She often appears on television, including in the programs “My Hero”, the film “Irina Rodnina. Invincible”, created using newsreels from her personal archives, as a captain together with Lev Leshchenko of the team “Made in the USSR” in the “Battle of the Continents” sports and entertainment show “Big Races”.
At the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Sochi, Irina Rodnina, together with Vladislav Tretiak, lit the fire of the event in 2014.
On September 16, 2015, at a meeting of the State Duma, the leader of the LDPR faction, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, insulted Rodnina during a speech and, instead of an apology, left the hall (along with members of his party). The reason for this behavior, his associates consider the unacceptable remarks of the figure skater, which she, it seems, allows to throw at the deputies speaking on the parliamentary tribune, being in the front row. Irina Konstantinovna stated that “rudeness” should be punished, accordingly she filed a complaint with the State Duma Commission on Ethics.
Rodnina Irina Konstantinovna (09/12/1949) is a Soviet figure skater who entered the Guinness Book of Records as an athlete who has never lost in international competitions. She has three Olympic gold medals, 10 victories at the world championships. At the moment, he is a member of the State Duma of the Russian Federation from the United Russia party.
“I don’t understand athletes who come to competitions and then start complaining about the loss of form, old injuries and so on. And the worst thing is if they then refuse to fight and are removed from the tournament. Is it really necessary to explain to adults that victory is not easy. It comes through overcoming, through "I can't." And if you are speaking for the honor of the country, you must be ready to die for it!”
Childhood
Irina Rodnina was born on September 12, 1949 in Moscow. Her father is a military man, and her mother is a medical worker. Interestingly, it was health problems that predetermined the path of the future Olympic champion. As a child, Irina often suffered from pneumonia, and doctors advised her parents to send the girl to sports. But such that classes are held outdoors. And since it was winter, the choice was small - skiing or figure skating. Parents chose the latter, as there was a good skating rink near their house.
After some time, Rodnina's mother decided that the girl should take skating seriously, and enrolled her in the section. Irina's first coach was Yakov Smushin. Subsequently, several mentors changed, and as a result, Rodnina ended up in the CSKA section, and her classes were led by Czech specialists Miloslav and Sonya Balun.
This period of Irina Rodnina's career was marked by bronze medals at the All-Union Youth Competitions. Then the figure skater paired with Oleg Vlasov.
Career
Under the leadership of S. Zhuk
When Irina Rodnina was 15 years old (1964), Stanislav Zhuk became her coach. Alexey Ulanov became her partner on the ice. The couple trained a lot and after three years won their first gold - at the Moscow Skates tournament. And a year later they became bronze medalists of the USSR championship.
The first international success came at the European Championships in 1969. Despite the 2nd place in short program, Ulanov and Rodnina managed to get together and win the competition. After that, Irina was given the title of Honored Master of Sports. In the same year, the skaters also won their first gold at the world championships. And in 1972, success came at the Olympic Games.
In the same 72nd, Rodnina stopped performing in tandem with Ulanov, as he preferred to ride with his wife. There was even a moment when Irina thought about leaving big sport. But the coach Stanislav Zhuk dissuaded the girl, finding her a new partner in the person of the young Alexander Zaitsev. Together with him, Rodnina very quickly mastered all the complex elements and a year later the couple won the European Championship, bypassing, among other things, a pair of Ulanov-Smirnov.
This stage of Irina Rodnina's career was marked by another historical event in the world of figure skating. An unpleasant incident occurred at the World Championships in Bratislava. During the performance, the music turned off. Later it turned out that it was a deliberate sabotage. But Rodnina and Zaitsev did not stop their rental, completing the program to a standing ovation from the public.
“When the music turned off, I saw the judges out of the corner of my eye, who were making gestures for us to stop. But we were already on our way. Everything else we did by inertia. All I heard was the creak of the skates. The hall was silent at first, and then began to applaud”
After the performance of Rodnina and Zaitsev, the judges offered to perform again - to the music. But the skaters flatly refused, saying that the technical failure was not their fault. As a result, the referee decided to lower the marks. But in the final standings, Soviet athletes were again the first.
Under the leadership of T. Tarasova
In 1974, Irina Rodnina and Alexander Zaitsev make, one might say, a historic decision. They change coaches and go to Tatyana Tarasova. The reasons for this action are not entirely clear. Rodnina herself once said that it was about a relationship. Stanislav Zhuk was more despotic, and Tarasova, on the contrary, communicated with her wards as equals.
The new mentor brought more artistry to the skaters' skating. And the new program literally captivated the judges at the Olympiad-76. Even despite the fact that the couple made several mistakes during the performance, the referees gave very high marks. Thus, Irina Rodnina became the Olympic champion for the second time.
At the 1980 Games, Zaitsev and Rodnina were under tremendous pressure from Western rivals and journalists. They were accused of using prohibited elements in figure skating. Tatyana Tarasova even had to redo the program in a few months, removing several supports from it. But the pressure did not affect the Soviet skaters. They brilliantly skated both programs, Irina Rodnina at the age of 30 became a three-time winner of the Olympic Games. During the award ceremony, the athlete could not hold back her tears. Photos with her tearful eyes then bypassed all the world's media.
After sports
After the end of her career, Irina Rodnina began working as a coach. She taught at the Institute of Physical Education. In 1990, the athlete left for America, where she also worked with young skaters. Irina Konstantinovna returned to her homeland only 12 years later, and from that moment she decided to engage in politics.
She put forward her candidacy in the elections to the State Duma in 2003. But then she could not win and go to parliament. I had to wait four years, until in 2007 she was nevertheless elected on the list of United Russia. Irina Rodnina actively participates in the public life of the country. It was she, together with hockey player Vladislav Tretyak, who was entrusted with the honorable mission of lighting a fire at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi.
Personal life
Irina Rodnina has already been married twice. Her first chosen one was figure skating partner Alexander Zaitsev. From this marriage, Rodnina had a son, who was named, like his father, Sasha. Now he is a grown man. He is a ceramist by profession.
The second husband of Irina Rodnina was businessman Leonid Minkovsky. In 1986, the couple gave birth to a child - a daughter, Alena. Now the girl lives in America, where she works on television.
// Photo: frame from the talk show "Alone with everyone"
According to Irina Konstantinovna, she was prompted to leave for permanent residence in the States by unemployment in Russia in the late 80s and early 90s. In the United States, Rodnina was offered a lucrative offer - a job as a coach at the International Figure Skating Center in Lake Arrowhead, near Los Angeles. The woman agreed almost immediately.
“I signed the contract quite calmly,” the athlete recalls. - True, I thought that they would not let me out of the country, we did not have such a practice. But two months later they called me and said: “Everything is ready!” Nowhere to go! Besides, I wasn't working at the time. After all, they asked me very tactfully, they said: “After the birth of your second child, it’s better to take up motherhood, otherwise you will never experience this feeling again!” And then there's the contract. So such an unexpected scam was a success.”
Having moved to America, Irina Konstantinovna began to cooperate with sports celebrities. Her colleagues were the Italian figure skater Carlo Fassi, the American figure skating coach Frank Carroll ... According to the athlete, despite her fame and position, few people recognized her on the streets anyway. Popularity did not even help when Irina had problems with the law.
// Photo: frame from the documentary “Irina Rodnina. Invincible"
“Every year I got letters saying I was in the top 3% of dangerous drivers in California. I have been disqualified three times. But in the States there is such a feature: yes, you can be deprived of a driver's license, but through the court you can return them. If you prove that the car - the only way get to work, and there is no public transport nearby, ”says the celebrity.
All ten years that Rodnina lived in the USA, she continued to build sports career. However, love for Russia did not fade away. Most of all, Irina Konstantinovna missed the peculiarities of the Russian mentality. For example, crowded in stores.
The woman is still offended that she is considered a traitor to the Motherland.
“I always flew to the capital, definitely 3-4 times a year. Then it became more and more often. Like, “Here I am back!” - I did not have, as well as the thought that I left forever. And they accuse me, ”says Irina Konstantinovna.
A portion of criticism was received by the children of the star - son Alexander and daughter Alena. Fans of Irina Konstantinovna were outraged that the figure skating coach, having returned, earned money in Russia, and spent it on the American education of her heirs.
“Getting experience there and coming here is a bigger thrill. Our task is to ensure that the country is not closed and integrated into the world space. And they shout at my back: “You are here and there!” Listen, my children did not study and live in America on public money. I didn't steal anything from anyone. Here our athletes decided to go to Olympic Games[under neutral flag], so some of our people shouted that they were traitors, not patriots. What now? Everyone is delighted! We praise the winners and tell them: “It's great that they went!”
Despite the flurry negative reviews, the skater does not hold a grudge against Internet critics.
“We have a lot to learn. It must be admitted that somewhere we are still at the beginning, somewhere we have already overtaken [other countries], and somewhere we are in the middle of the way. Therefore, it is impossible to clearly say: “Close, do not let anyone in and condemn!” I wouldn't do it. Such an act can be broken. For example, if a young man does not see his own way here, in Russia, this is bad. This means that we must change something in the country so that the younger generation does not have such thoughts,” Rodnina emphasized.