Kira Ivanova - international master of sports, Soviet figure skater. Bronze medalist of the 1984 Olympic Games in singles, silver medalist of the World Cup, 4-time silver medalist of the European Championships, USSR champion 1979 and 1981.
Kira Valentinovna Ivanova was the first Russian figure skater to win a medal in women's single skating at the Olympic Games in Sarajevo. The famous domestic skater was awarded the title of vice champion in his sport.
Carier start
The biography of the future athlete began in 1963. The girl was born in a metropolitan family on January 10. The grandmother raised her granddaughter and her younger sister. Together with five-year-old Kira, she went to the Spartak sports club. Her trainer was Irina Anikanova.
The mentor appreciated both the perseverance and the diligence of the child. The girl entered the special group for figure skaters. In 1978, Ivanova transferred to the famous coach Viktor Nikolayevich Kudryavtsev. The first serious speech for the future champion was the competition of the Winter Spartakiad of the Peoples of the USSR in the same year.
Among juniors, the girl took second place. Then, at the world championship in Megeve in the junior category, the program completed by Ivanova received high marks from the judges. The athlete became the owner of the “silver”, losing to Jill Sawyer. At the world tournament, such a success of the Soviet skaters was the first.
The girl began to take part in various competitions. In a free program on Skate Canada, she brilliantly performed two triple jumps, attempting to perform a double axel. Active participation in the preparation of the skater was now taken by the famous mentor Elena Tchaikovsky.
At the adult level, the first successes began in 1979. Kira received the “gold” in the national championship. Triumph became the reason for enrolling in the USSR national team. At her first adult European championship, the athlete got the tenth place. I was struck by a novice athlete with a pair of triple jumps in an arbitrary performance at the world tournament. Above 18 places, the girl did not get errors in other elements.
Success
In 1980, Kira took part in her first Olympic Games. The beginning of a career in Lake Placid was unsuccessful. Excited after the brilliant performance of three triple jumps, the skater made mistakes in simpler tricks. As a result, Kira was not able to climb the podium.
But the athlete was the only one who represented the SSR in women's single skating, out of 22 participants becoming 16. After the USSR championship won in Odessa, Ivanova again became the best in the country. Then the girl would perform brilliantly at the international championship. In the short program, both the axel and the double rittberger were perfectly executed.
"Silver" athlete won in the already familiar tournament "Skate Canada". In the free program, the skater struck the audience with the purity of the triple rittberger and four triple jumps. In intensive training, the girl was assisted by the Bolshoi Theater choreographers and the famous Alexander Zaitsev, two-time Olympic champion.
Significant changes began in 1982. Kira moved from the Spartak society to Dynamo. She began to train with Vladimir Kovalev. The girl confidently won in Krasnoyarsk at the Fifth Spartakiad of the Peoples of the USSR. The scandal began after failure of the doping control.
The winner was stripped of the award and expelled from the national team. Return to professional sports took place in 1983. Kira won the USSR Cup a year before the Olympics, triumphantly performed at the qualifying competitions.
New achievements
In 1984, Ivanova went to the second Olympic Games. Kovalev was replaced by the honored trainer of the RSFSR Eduard Pliner. The girl received high marks from the judges after the compulsory program. In arbitrary, she performed a cascade of triple sheepskin coats.
It was not possible to perfectly execute in the final performance a technically complex set of five triple jumps in a row. However, the panel of judges evaluated the efforts of the athlete, giving her third place. The medal was the first Olympic in the history of women's single skating in the country.
After the triumph, Ivanova participated as one of the favorites in new tournaments. One of the most successful in his career was the 1984-1985 season. It began with failure. Kira failed to win the championship of the country. "Gold" she lost to Anna Kondrashova.
However, the skater was preparing intensively for the international championship. A place in the national team was provided by “silver” at the All-Union Championship. The athlete went to the European Championship in Gothenburg. Judges conquered the performance of Kira. Only Katarina Witt was able to get ahead of her. To defeat the "Princess on Ice" failed in Tokyo.
The result of the struggle was again "silver." However, this was the undoubted success of the skater. She became one of the strongest on the planet. She was able to maintain the title of Ivanov for several years. The winner of many competitions Kira became from 1985 to 1988. In Copenhagen 1986, she again took the second step of the podium, losing to Witt. The same situation was repeated in Sarajevo in 1987, in Prague 1988.
The girl went to her third Olympics in 1988 in the Canadian city of Calgary. She acted confidently, ahead of competitors. Not a single triple jump figure skater could not be cleanly performed in the final program.
