Alexander Gennadijewitsch Saizew

Alexander Saizew
Full name	Alexander Gennadijewitsch Saizew
nation	Soviet Union
birthday	June 16, 1952
place of birth	Leningrad ,  Soviet Union
size	178 cm
Weight	79 kg
Career
discipline	Pair skating
Partner	Irina Rodnina
society	CSKA Moscow
Trainer	Stanislav Schuk
status	resigned
End of career	1980
Medal table
Olympic medals 2 × 0 × 0 × World Cup medals 6 × 0 × 0 × EM medals 7 × 0 × 0 ×
winter Olympics gold Innsbruck 1976 Couples gold Lake Placid 1980 Couples  World figure skating championships gold Bratislava 1973 Couples gold Munich 1974 Couples gold Colorado Springs 1975 Couples gold Gothenburg 1976 Couples gold Tokyo 1977 Couples gold Ottawa 1978 Couples  European figure skating championships gold Cologne 1973 Couples gold Zagreb 1974 Couples gold Copenhagen 1975 Couples gold Geneva 1976 Couples gold Helsinki 1977 Couples gold Strasbourg 1978 Couples gold Gothenburg 1980 Couples

Alexander Gennadijewitsch Saizew ( Russian Александр Геннадиевич Зайцев , English Alexander Zaitsev ; born June 16, 1952 in Leningrad , Soviet Union ) is a former Soviet figure skater who started in pair skating . With two Olympic victories , six world championship titles and seven European championship titles , which he won together with Irina Rodnina , he is the most successful pair skater in figure skating history .

Career

In April 1972, Irina Rodnina's trainer Stanislaw Schuk recommended that after her separation from Alexei Ulanow she try to skate in pairs with the young Leningrad figure skater Alexander Saizew. Saizew stood out for his good jumping technique and his quick learning of new elements. So Saizew and Rodnina formed a couple. Rodnina should be even more successful with Saizew than she was with Alexei Ulanow. Rodnina and Saizew continued seamlessly from her past successes. 1973 Saizew and Rodnina were already Soviet champions and won the gold medal in Cologne at their first joint European championship and in Bratislava at their first joint world championship. At the World Cup, they managed to do this even though the music was out. Nevertheless, they kept their concentration and ran the freestyle to the end. For this they got standing applause and a unanimous judge's verdict in their favor. They won both the European Championship title and the World Cup title ahead of Rodnina's former partner Alexei Ulanow and Rodnina's constant competitor Liudmila Smirnova . The dance style of the couple Saizew / Rodnina was celebrated as a "revolution" at the time. The two had turned their backs on romantic ice skating and given their freestyle a new direction in figure skating with fast elements. In 1974 the couple defended their Soviet league title, their European Championship title in Zagreb and their World Cup title in Munich . They succeeded in doing this in 1975 at the European Championships in Copenhagen and the World Championships in Colorado Springs . Shortly afterwards, in April 1975, Saizew and Rodnina got married. In 1976 they continued their triumphant advance. They became European champions in Geneva and world champions in Gothenburg . In Innsbruck they played their first joint Olympic Games . Your Olympic victory was safe. They won both the short program and the freestyle and were placed in first place by all the judges. They relegated Romy Kermer and Rolf Oesterreich from the GDR , as in the previous and following world championships, to second place. In 1977, Saizew and Rodnina became Soviet champions for the fourth and last time. In Helsinki the couple became European champions for the fifth time in a row and in Tokyo for the fifth time in a row world champions. This made them the first, and to date, the only couple to have won five titles at world championships. In 1978 they won the European Championship in Strasbourg and won their sixth and last World Cup title in a row in Ottawa, Canada . This makes Alexander Saizew and Irina Rodnina the most successful couple at world championships to this day . In 1979, the couple did not contest competitions because Rodnina was pregnant and gave birth to a son. In 1980 Saizew and Rodnina returned. They won their seventh and final European Championship title in Gothenburg . They overtook Marika Kilius and Hans-Jürgen Bäumler , who had six European titles, and became the most successful pair at European figure skating championships . The Olympic Games in Lake Placid should be her last appearance, as Rodnina could not contest the following World Championship due to a shoulder injury. The reigning world champions Tai Babilonia and Randy Gardner from the USA could not take part because Gardner was injured and so Saizew and Rodnina had no trouble defending their Olympic title. After Andrée Brunet and Pierre Brunet in 1932 and 1936 and Lyudmila Belousova and Oleg Protopopow in 1964 and 1968 , they were the third and, for the time being, last couple to defend Olympic gold. Saizew and Rodnina won all the competitions in which they participated in their careers over a period of eight years.

The marriage to Irina Rodnina ended in divorce after just a few years. Saizew became a coach in the USA and now lives in Moscow again.

Results

Pair skating

(with Irina Rodnina )

Competition / year	1973	1974	1975	1976	1977	1978	1979	1980
winter Olympics				1.				1.
World championships	1.	1.	1.	1.	1.	1.
European championships	1.	1.	1.	1.	1.	1.		1.
Soviet championships	1.	1.	1.		1.

Web links

• Alexander Gennadijewitsch Saizew in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )