Olympic medal record | ||
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Figure skating | ||
Silver | 1998 Nagano | Pairs |
Gold | 2002 Salt Lake City | Pairs |
Sikharulidze and Berezhnaya compete in 2001 |
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Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Full name | Anton Tarielyevich Sikharulidze | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Country represented | Russia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Born | 25 October 1976 St. Petersburg |
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Height | 182 cm (5.97 ft) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Partner | Elena Berezhnaya | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Former partner | Maria Petrova | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Former coach | Tamara Moskvina Ludmila Velikova and Nikolai Velikov |
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Former choreographer | Tamara Moskvina Igor Bobrin Aleksandr Matveev |
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Skating club | Yubileiny Sport Club | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Retired | 2002 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Anton Tarielyevich Sikharulidze (Russian: Антон Тариэльевич Сихарулидзе, born 25 October 1976 in St. Petersburg) is a Russian pair skater. With Elena Berezhnaya, he is the 1998 and 1999 World champion, 1998 Olympic silver medalist and 2002 Olympic champion.
His first partner was Maria Petrova, with whom he became the 1994 and 1995 World Junior Champion. He teamed with Berezhnaya in 1996 after helping her recovery from an accident with her previous partner.
Within two years of the accident, Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze had established themselves as one of the best pair teams in the world.[1] They were noted for their lyrical, flowing and elegant style, which they combined with strong athleticism, including outstanding speed, unison, and big elements.[2][3][4][5][6] During their career together, they were coached by Tamara Moskvina primarily at the Yubileyny Sports Palace in Saint Petersburg, Russia. They also trained at the Ice House in Hackensack, New Jersey, during which time Sikharulidze lived in Fort Lee, New Jersey.[7] Their Olympic gold medals are shared with Canadian pair Jamie Salé and David Pelletier.
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Sikharulidze was born in Saint Petersburg. After seeing a neighbor's boy with skates, he asked his parents for the same. At the age of 15, with skating taking up a lot of his time and limiting his personal life, he considered leaving the sport but his father encouraged him to persevere.[8] With Maria Petrova, Sikharulidze was the 1994 and 1995 World Junior Champion and placed as high as sixth at the World Figure Skating Championships. They trained under Ludmila Velikova and Nikolai Velikov at the Yubileyny Sports Palace in Saint Peterburg, Russia.
At the end of 1995, Elena Berezhnaya and Oleg Shliakhov arrived from Riga to train under Tamara Moskvina at the same rink. Sikharulidze quickly developed a close friendship with Berezhnaya.[9] Shliakhov perceived Sikharulidze as his rival to become her partner.[10] Soon after this, Shliakhov and Berezhnaya returned to Riga to train.
In January 1996, Berezhnaya was seriously injured when Shliakhov's blade sliced into her skull while the pair were practicing a side-by-side camel spin in Riga, Latvia, causing partial paralysis on her right side and loss of speech.[1][2] During her hospitalization, Sikharulidze heard of the news, and traveled to Latvia to be with her, joining Moskvina.[11] Berezhnaya was surprised and overjoyed to see him, but unable to speak or move.[12] Sikharulidze took her back to Saint Petersburg, Russia where she could begin her rehabilitation. She stayed at his parents' small apartment, sharing a room with him and his sister, Marina.[12] She was grateful for his support, saying she was "skinny, shaved, half-alive, almost a skeleton, and Anton so tenderly cared about me. Perhaps it was his belief in me that helped me recover so quickly.[12]
Berezhnaya wished to return to the ice and doctors agreed that physical exercise would be therapeutic.[2] On 15 March 1996, only two months after the accident, she began skating carefully with Sikharulidze's help and Moskvina observing.[1][2] Tamara Moskvina was immediately captivated by the pairing, "They're a natural pair. They've got it – something magical."[1]
Sikharulidze had split from Petrova due to his desire to work with Moskvina while Petrova preferred to remain with their old coaches.[13] With Berezhnaya's condition improving, the two began to consider the possibility of a competitive career together. She had made a nearly full recovery, although her speech remained slurred, leading her to take speech therapy.[2] In the fall of 1996, the pair entered two Grand Prix events, winning their first medal together, a bronze, at Trophée Lalique. In early 1997, the pair won the bronze medal at the European Championships, a rare feat for a pair in their first season together, and even more stunning given her injury less than a year ago.[2] At their next competition, the 1997 World Figure Skating Championships, they were in third after the short program, but fell to ninth after the worst free skate performance of their career.
The next season, they won the European Championship, defeating 1992 Olympic champion Artur Dmitriev with his new partner Oksana Kazakova, and the reigning World Champions Mandy Wötzel and Ingo Steuer. At only 20 and 21 years of age respectively, Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze had established themselves as gold-medal favorites going into the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. Observers were impressed at how rapidly they had become a force, with most teams requiring more years to become attuned as a pair.[1] Time called their story "the miracle on ice". Their skating drew comparisons to the two-time Olympic Champions Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov.[1][2] Gordeeva selected Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze as her and Grinkov's skating doubles in a documentary on the legendary team after her husband's death.
In the short program, the pair had one fall but performed the other elements with high quality. In the long, they put themselves back in contention for the gold medal with a strong performance, until five seconds from the end when they had a surprising fall as Sikharulidze set her down from a closing star lift.[14] Although disappointed by suddenly giving away their chance at the gold so close to the end of the program, Sikharulidze recovered from his shock and joked, "It's a new finish. If you don't like it, we'll change it, no problem."[14] They won the silver medal behind Oksana Kazakova and Artur Dmitriev and ahead of Mandy Wötzel and Ingo Steuer of Germany.
Over the next four years, Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze established themselves as one of the top teams in the world, twice winning the World Championships in 1998 and 1999. In 1999, their main training rink Yubileyny Sports Palace closed for renovations, so they moved to Hackensack, New Jersey. They trained alongside the American pair of Kyoko Ina and John Zimmerman whom Moskvina had agreed to coach, with the two teams being friendly rivals.
In 2000, after the pair won the 2000 European Figure Skating Championships, Berezhnaya tested positive for pseudoephedrine, a substance whose ban was lifted between 2004 and 2010. This resulted in a three-month disqualification from the date of the test, and the medal being stripped.[15] She had taken only a simple cold medication approved by a doctor but had failed to inform the ISU as required.[16] Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze missed the World Championships that year as a result of the disqualification.
In the 2001-2002 season, Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze developed a rivalry with Canadians Jamie Salé and David Pelletier. Throughout the season, both pairs had traded first and second place at most of the major competitions, and they figured to be the main contenders for the Olympic gold medal. The New York Times speculated that the judging might be influenced by the crowd response, with the familiar music of Love Story having more potential to draw louder applause in North America and the judges not being immune to human reactions.[17]
At the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, both pairs skated strong short programs, after which Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze were in 1st and Sale and Pelletier, who had a fall at the end of their program, 2nd. In the long program, Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze skated a good program, but Sikharulidze made a minor (but obvious) mistake by stepping out of a double axel. Sale and Pelletier, meanwhile, had no obvious mistakes. Four judges placed the Canadians first, while five had Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze as the winners. Sale and Pelletier received higher technical scores, but Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze had superior artistic marks. At the time, artistic impression was weighted more than technical merit. Some observers pointed out that Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze had performed a more challenging program with difficult interweaving moves and transitions.[15] At the end of the night, they were awarded the gold and the Canadians the silver.[18]
The result sparked a controversy. The president of the International Skating Union, Ottavio Cinquanta, under extreme pressure from the International Olympic Committee as well as the Canadian and American media, immediately launched an investigation into a possible judging scandal. The focus immediately turned to French judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne, the only Western judge in favor of the Russian pair. Under intense pressure herself from a media heavily in favor of Sale and Pelletier, she stated that she had been intimidated into voting for the Russian pair in exchange for an advantage for the French couple in the ice dancing competition, which was to follow a few days later. The scandal resulted in a second gold medal being awarded to the Canadian pair, and the IOC and ISU decided to declare both pairs as Olympic co-champions. When the media furore faded, Le Gougne rescinded her earlier statement and declared she had voted according to her honest assessment of the performances but had been pressured by the media to say otherwise. Leading up to the pairs final, NBC had heavily promoted the chances of the Canadian pair finally breaking the decades-long Russian/Soviet dominance of the pairs event.
Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze turned pro after the Olympics, deciding not to compete at the 2002 World Championships.
Sikharulidze was known for his sense of humor. In 1998, after a fall during the final moments of their long program, he joked that it was "their new landing position." During the judging controversy, Sikharulidze's humorous comments did much to defuse a tense situation. He was gracious about the double-gold decision, saying, "Two great countries, two great pairs." Later on, he acknowledged that the controversy brought them more attention than they would have gotten without any scandal.[7]
From 2002-2006, he and Berezhnaya skated with Stars on Ice in the United States, then returned to Russia. He makes occasional appearances in Russian ice shows. In 2006, he competed in a Channel One (Russia) show Stars on Ice (Russian: Звёзды на льду), partnered with Natalia Ionova (later replaced by Yulia Barsukova due to injury). In 2007, he skated in the Channel One show Ice Age (Russian: Ледниковый период), partnered with Anastasia Volochkova. In 2010, he joined another edition of Ice Age, teaming up with Zara.[19]
In 2006, he became a member of the political party United Russia. In 2007, he was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Saint Petersburg. On 2 December 2007, he was elected to the State Duma. He is the Chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee for Physical Culture and Sport.[20]
In 2010 he registered as a candidate for the presidency of the Figure Skating Federation of Russia, but withdrew after the constitution was altered, stating that the changes left the president as nothing more than a figurehead.[21][22]
His sister, Marina, is an economist, and his brother, Alexander, is a businessman.[8] He and Berezhnaya had an on-and-off romantic relationship between 1996 and 2002; they remain close friends.[12][23] In August 2010, Sikharulidze became the godfather to Berezhnaya's son.[24] In August 2011, Sikharulidze and Yana Lebedeva, daughter of Leonid Lebedev, confirmed their engagement.[25] They were married in October 2011 in Barcelona.[26]
Season | Short program[27] | Long program[28] | Exhibition[29] |
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2001–2002 | Lady Caliph:
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The Kid:
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2000–2001 |
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City Lights:
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Smooth:
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1999–2000 |
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1998–1999 |
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Concerto for Coloratura:
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1997–1998 |
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1996–1997 |
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Season | Programs |
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2005–2006 |
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2004–2005 |
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2003–2004 |
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2002–2003 | After Hours at Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum (Elvis & Marilyn):
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With Maria Petrova
Season | Short program | Long program | Exhibition |
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1994–1995 | |||
1995–1996 |
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Event | 1996–97 | 1997–98 | 1998–99 | 1999–00 | 2000–01 | 2001–02 |
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Winter Olympic Games | 2nd | 1st | ||||
World Championships | 9th | 1st | 1st | 2nd | ||
European Championships | 3rd | 1st | WD | DQ* | 1st | |
Russian Championships | 2nd | 2nd | 1st | 1st | 1st | 1st |
Grand Prix Final | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 2nd | 2nd | |
Skate America | 1st | 3rd | ||||
Skate Canada | 1st | 2nd | ||||
Nations Cup | 2nd | |||||
Trophée Lalique | 3rd | 1st | 1st | 1st | ||
Cup of Russia | 5th | 1st | 1st | 1st | ||
NHK Trophy | 1st |
*Won the gold but disqualified due to Berezhnaya testing positive for pseudoephedrine
Event | 1992–93 | 1993–94 | 1994–95 | 1995–96 |
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World Championships | 8th | 6th | ||
World Junior Championships | 2nd | 1st | 1st | |
European Championships | 6th | 5th | ||
Russian Championships | 6th | 2nd | 4th | |
Skate Canada International | 2nd | |||
Trophée Lalique | 5th | |||
NHK Trophy | 7th |
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