Tamara Moskvina

Tamara Moskvina

Moskvina in 2009
Personal information
Full name Tamara Nikolayevna Moskvina
Alternative names Tamara Nikolayevna Bratus
Country represented  Soviet Union
Born June 26, 1941 (1941-06-26) (age 70)
Leningrad
Former partner Alexei Mishin
Alexander Gavrilov
Former coach Igor Moskvin
Ivan Bogoyavlenski

Tamara Nikolayevna Moskvina (), née Bratus (Братусь) is a Russian pair skating coach and former competitive skater. In pair skating with partner Alexei Mishin,[1] she was the 1969 World silver medalist and Soviet national champion. In ladies singles, she was a five-time (1962–1966) Soviet national champion. She later became a successful coach, leading pair teams to the following titles:

Moskvina coached at least one pair to an Olympic medal in six consecutive Winter Olympics from 1984 to 2002. She twice coached the gold and silver medal-winning pairs, in 1992 and 1998. Moskvina is based in Saint Petersburg, Russia at the Yubileyny Sports Palace, and has also coached at Hackensack, New Jersey's Ice House. She is married to Igor Moskvin.

Contents

Early life

Tamara Nikolayevna Bratus was born on June 26, 1941, in Leningrad.[2] During the Siege of Leningrad in World War II, she was evacuated to a small village in the Ural Mountains where her mother had relatives.[3] Her father's side of the family was from Kiev.[2] Moskvina is only 4'10" due to childhood malnutrition during the war years.[4][2]

The family returned to Leningrad in 1948. She began skating at the age of 10, after her father got used skates for her and her two sisters.[3][5] Her father died suddenly at the age of 47, though he had never been ill before.[2]

Career

As a skater

Moskvina skated at the Iskra and Dinamo rinks, the latter of which was on a tennis court.[5] She was first coached by Ivan Bogoyavlensky.[6] In 1957, she began training with coach Igor Moskvin.[6] They married in 1964.[3] She won the Soviet ladies' title five times during the early 1960s. Her best finish at an international competition in singles was 14th at the 1965 European Championships. Moskvina may have been the first to perform what is now called a Biellmann spin. She was inspired after seeing a gymnastics competition and began attempting it on the ice.[5] She included the spin at the 1960 European Championships.[5]

At Moskvin's suggestion, she decided to try pair skating. As he later explained, the leading women's coach in those years was Tatiana Granatkina-Tolmacheva, who worked in Moscow and led a group of girls of the same age as Moskvina. Her husband Alexander Tolmachev headed the Figure Skating Federation of Moscow, so Mosvkina, who did not train under Tatiana Tolmacheva, had little chance to stay in the team.[6] Her first partner was Alexander Gavrilov, with whom she won the 1965 Soviet national title. After he retired, she teamed up with Alexei Mishin whom she had trained alongside when they were both singles skaters.[3][2] She and Mishin won the 1969 USSR Championships, defeating both the two-time Olympic gold medallists Ludmila Belousova and Oleg Protopopov, and the future champions Irina Rodnina and Alexei Ulanov. They went on to win silver at the 1969 World Championships. At the European Championships, they won won a silver (1968) and bronze (1969).

They did not compete the following season because Moskvina was expecting a baby.[7]

As a coach

Moskvina decided to retire to concentrate on a coaching career. She earned her doctorate in educational psychology from the Leningrad Academy of Physical Culture.[3]

During her own skating career, both in singles and in pairs, Moskvina was known for including unusual flexibility moves in her programs. She has passed this on in the choreography for the various pair teams she has coached, inventing many unique pair skating elements in which the man and woman, although performing different movements, still work together as a unit. This style of choreography is sometimes referred to as "opposition choreography," as opposed to shadow or mirror skating, when the two partners perform similar movements in unison together.

Moskvina has had a long career in coaching pairs.[8] She has coached multiple successful pair teams at the Yubileyny Sports Palace in Saint Petersburg, Russia. She was one of the first Soviet coaches to collaborate with the skating world outside the Soviet Union and its satellites. She contributed a report on the 1970 European Championships to the American publication Skating magazine, which at that time required clearance through the central news agency in the Soviet Union.[9] She co-authored the International Skating Union's judging handbook for pair skating in 1984. In 1999, she moved to Hackensack, New Jersey's Ice House and spent several years coaching there.[4] In 2001-2002, Moskvina returned to Yubileyny where she continues to coach.[10]

Moskvina has coached some pairs in collaboration with her husband, Igor Moskvin (Kyoko Ina / John Zimmerman). Former students Artur Dmitriev and Oksana Kazakova have also coached in collaboration with Moskvina at Yubileyny.[11] Her pairs have worked with various choreographers, including Alexander Matveev, Tatiana Druchinina (until 2011), Valeri Pecherski,[11] Igor Bobrin, and Peter Tchernyshev. Former student Oleg Vasiliev coached Tatiana Totmianina / Maxim Marinin to an Olympic gold medal after Moskvina sent them to him.[12]

Moskvina works mostly with Russian pairs. She has also worked with an American team, Ina / Zimmerman who won the World bronze medal in 2002, and a Japanese team, Yuko Kawaguchi / Alexander Markuntsov who became the first Japanese pair to medal at an ISU Championship when they won silver at the 2001 World Junior Championships).

Moskvina plans to retire after the 2014 Olympics but will continue to advise pairs and will also write a book on her coaching experiences.[11]

Personal life

Tamara Moskvina is married to fellow coach Igor Moskvin. They have two daughters, Olga and Anna.[4] One daughter is an economist who graduated from Columbia University, the second is a linguist who graduated from a Saint Petersburg university.[5]

Competitive highlights

Pair skating with Alexei Mishin

Event 1965–66 1966–67 1967–68 1968–69
Winter Olympics 5th
World Championships 6th 4th 2nd
European Championships 6th 2nd 3rd
Soviet Championships 3rd 2nd 2nd 1st
Prize of Moscow News 1st 1st
Winter Universiade 3rd

(with Alexander Gavrilov)

Event 1965
Soviet Championships 1st

Ladies singles

Event 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966
European Championships 27th 19th 20th 14th
Soviet Championships 9th 2nd 2nd 1st 1st 1st 1st 1st

Awards

This article incorporates information from the equivalent article on the Russian Wikipedia.

Moskvina was inducted into the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 2005.

References

  1. ^ "Interview with Alexei Mishin" (in Russian). TV Park magazine. 2003-03-28. Archived from the original on November 9, 2005. http://web.archive.org/web/20051109013712/http://www.tv-park.ru/home/mfiles/article/?id=81. 
  2. ^ a b c d e Vaytsekhovskaya, Elena (June 26, 2011). "Маленькая великая женщина [The tiny great lady]" (in Russian). Sport Express. Archived from the original on December 23, 2011. http://winter.sport-express.ru/figureskating/reviews/14783. 
  3. ^ a b c d e Mittan, Barry (18 May 2003). "Tamara Moskvina - Coach of Olympic Pairs Champions". GoldenSkate.com. Archived from the original on December 23, 2011. http://www.goldenskate.com/2003/05/tamara-moskvina-coach-of-olympic-pairs-champions/. 
  4. ^ a b c "Tamara Moskvina - Online Interview". GoldenSkate.com. 22 June 2002. Archived from the original on December 23, 2011. http://www.goldenskate.com/2002/06/tamara-moskvina-online-interview/. 
  5. ^ a b c d e Polyanskaya, Natalia (June 22, 2011). "«Учу кататься и жить» ["I teach how to skate and live"]" (in Russian). Moskovskiy Komsomolets (Saint Petersburg edition). Archived from the original on December 23, 2011. http://www.webcitation.org/648yuLJdj. 
  6. ^ a b c Vaytsekhovskaya, Elena (August 25, 2009). "Игорь МОСКВИН: "НИКОГДА НЕ СЧИТАЛ, ЧТО МЫ С ЖЕНОЙ КОНКУРЕНТЫ" [Igor Moskvin: I have never thought that my wife and I are rivals.]" (in Russian). Sport Express. Archived from the original on December 23, 2011. http://www.sport-express.ru/newspaper/2009-08-25/8_1/. 
  7. ^ "Newsmakers", Skating magazine, Feb 1970
  8. ^ Simonenko, Andrei (June 26, 2011). "Тамара Москвина: я должна выполнять желания своих фигуристов [Tamara Moskvina: I have to make my skaters' dreams come true]" (in Russian). RIA Novosti. Archived from the original on December 23, 2011. http://ria.ru/interview_sport/20110626/393477403.html. 
  9. ^ "In this issue", Skating magazine, Apr 1970
  10. ^ Flade, Tatjana (September 3, 2011). "Tamara Moskvina: A Rewarding Journey". IFS Magazine. Archived from the original on December 23, 2011. http://www.ifsmagazine.com/articles/598-tamara-moskvina-a-rewarding-journey. 
  11. ^ a b c Simonenko, Andrei (July 8, 2011). "Тамара Москвина: после Олимпиады в Сочи начну писать книгу [Tamara Moskvina: After the Sochi Olympics I'll concentrate on writing a book]" (in Russian). RIA Novosti. Archived from the original on December 23, 2011. http://sport.ria.ru/interview_sport/20110708/398970645.html. 
  12. ^ Simonenko, Andrei (June 30, 2011). "Тамара Москвина: создаю удовольствие под названием "фигурное катание" [Tamara Moskvina: Creating a pleasure called figure skating]" (in Russian). RIA Novosti. Archived from the original on December 23, 2011. http://sport.ria.ru/interview_sport/20110630/395646474.html. 
  13. ^ (in Russian) Panorama of the 1984 Sports Year. Moscow: Fizkultura i sport. 1985. p. 37. 

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