Tarasova in 2007 |
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| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Full name | Tatiana Anatolyevna Tarasova |
| Country represented | Soviet Union |
| Born | February 13, 1947 |
| Former partner | Aleksandr Tikhomirov Georgi Proskurin |
| Retired | 1966 |
Tatiana Anatolyevna Tarasova (, born February 13, 1947) is a Russian figure skating coach and national figure skating team adviser.[1] Tarasova has been coach to more world and Olympic champions than any other coach in skating history. As of 2003, her students have won a total of 41 gold medals at the European and World championships. As of 2010, her students have won a combined total of 7 Olympic gold medals in three of the four Olympic figure skating disciplines. Thus, she is popularly called the "Champion maker". She was inducted into the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 2008. She was the wife of Vladimir Krainev (1944-2011).
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Tatiana Tarasova is the daughter of Anatoly Tarasov, a famed ice hockey coach, who introduced her to figure skating at the age of 5. She competed in pair skating with Aleksandr Tikhomirov[2] and Georgi Proskurin. With Proskurin, she was a two-time Soviet national medalist. They finished 7th at the 1965 World Championships and 4th at the 1966 European Championships.[3]
(with Proskurin)
| Event | 1963–64 | 1964–65 | 1965–66 |
|---|---|---|---|
| World Championships | 7th | ||
| European Championships | 6th | 4th | |
| Soviet Championships | 3rd | 2nd | |
| Winter Universiade | 1st |
At 18 years of age, Tarasova suffered a career-ending injury. One year later, at her father's insistence, she started coaching.
Her most notable students have been Alexei Yagudin, Ilia Kulik, Natalia Bestemianova & Andrey Bukin, Oksana Grishuk & Evgeny Platov, Ekaterina Gordeeva & Sergei Grinkov, Marina Klimova & Sergey Ponomarenko and Irina Rodnina & Alexander Zaitsev.
In the mid-1990s, she launched a hugely successful ice ballet show called "Russian All-Stars." Tarasova lived for more than a decade in Simsbury, Connecticut, where she coached at the International Skating Center of Connecticut, before she announced her retirement from full-time coaching and moved back to Russia in 2006. Having returned to coaching in 2008 she coached Japanese 2008 World Champion and 2010 Olympic silver medalist Mao Asada.
Tarasova was awarded Order of Friendship of Peoples (1984).[4] In March 2008, she was inducted into the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame.
Her students have included:
Tarasova is assisted by choreographer Jeanetta Folle.