Alexei Nikolajewitsch Ulanow

Alexei Ulanov
Full name	Alexei Nikolajewitsch Ulanow
nation	Soviet Union
birthday	November 4, 1947
place of birth	Moscow,  Soviet Union
size	176 cm
Weight	71 kg
Career
discipline	Pair skating
Partner	Irina Rodnina, Lyudmila Smirnova
society	CSKA Moscow, Spartak Leningrad
Trainer	Stanislaw Schuk, Maija Belenkaya
status	resigned
End of career	1974
Medal table
Olympic medals 1 × 0 × 0 × World Cup medals 4 × 2 × 0 × EM medals 4 × 1 × 1 ×
winter Olympics gold Sapporo 1972 Couples  World figure skating championships gold Colorado Springs 1969 Couples gold Ljubljana 1970 Couples gold Lyon 1971 Couples gold Calgary 1972 Couples silver Bratislava 1973 Couples silver Munich 1974 Couples  European figure skating championships gold Garmisch-Partenkirchen 1969 Couples gold Leningrad 1970 Couples gold Zurich 1971 Couples gold Gothenburg 1972 Couples silver Cologne 1973 Couples bronze Zagreb 1974 Couples

Alexei Nikolajewitsch Ulanow ( Russian Алексей Николаевич Уланов ; English Alexei Ulanov ; born November 4, 1947 in Moscow , Soviet Union ) is a former Soviet figure skater , who started in pair skating , and a former Soviet and Russian figure skating coach.

Career

Ulanow started figure skating as a child together with his sister Jelena. He started out as a single runner and came in tenth at the Soviet championships. He then switched to pair skating and initially started with his sister.

From 1968 Irina Rodnina became his figure skating partner. You started for CSKA Moscow and trained with Stanislaw Schuk . With Rodnina he was third in their first Soviet championships in 1968 behind Lyudmila Belousova and Oleg Protopopow as well as Tamara Moskwina and Alexei Mishin . In 1968 Ulanow and Rodnina contested their first major international tournament with the European Championship in Västerås, Sweden . In the one-two victory for their compatriots, they finished in fifth place. In 1969 Ulanow and Rodnina only finished third in the national championships, but became European champions in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and also world champions in Colorado Springs when they participated in the world championship for the first time , the latter with a unanimous judge's judgment in front of their two Soviet rivals Moskwina / Mishin and Belousova / Protopopow.

Alexei Ulanow and Irina Rodnina, 1970

In 1970 the couple became Soviet champions for the first time and defended the European championship title in Leningrad and the world championship title in Ljubljana . They defeated their strongest competitors Lyudmila Smirnowa and Andrei Suraikin from now on . In 1971 the national championship, the European Championships in Zurich and the World Championships in Lyon had the same results. However, Ulanow and Rodnina lost the freestyle ranking at the World Cup against their national competitors. 1972 Ulanow and Rodnina dominated again. They became European champions for the fourth time in a row in Gothenburg . At their first Olympic Games they won the gold medal in Sapporo ahead of their long-term rivals Smirnowa and Suraikin with victories in both the short program and the freestyle . However, this success had a history. Alexei Ulanov was fed up with Rodnina being seen as the stronger part of the couple and had fallen in love with the couple's arch-rival, Lyudmila Smirnova. Even before the Olympic Games, the couple's separation for the next season was a done deal. After the Olympic freestyle, Rodnina left the ice in tears. The world championship in Calgary was the last joint appearance of the ice skating couple Ulanow / Rodnina. With a unanimous decision of the judges, they became world champions for the fourth time in a row.

Alexei Ulanov married Lyudmila Smirnova . These private and sporting changes also led to tensions with the coach, Stanislaw Schuk. From 1973 onwards, Alexei Ulanow also competed as a figure skating pair with Lyudmila Smirnova. You started for Spartak Leningrad and trained with Maija Belenkaya . At the European Championships in Cologne and the World Championships in Bratislava Ulanow and Smirnowa won the silver medal, both times behind Rodnina and her new partner Alexander Saizew . At the European Championships in Zagreb in 1974 , it was only enough for the bronze medal behind their compatriots and Romy Kermer and Rolf Oesterreich from the GDR. They were able to defeat the GDR couple again at the world championships in Munich and were again runner-up world champions behind Rodnina and Saizew. As a result, Alexei Ulanow ended his active figure skating career in 1974.

Ulanow graduated from the Gnessin Music School in the subject bayan and the Leningrad Conservatory in the ballet department. After his amateur career, he ran as a soloist in the Leningrad ensemble “Ballet on Ice” and worked as a figure skating coach. In the 1990s he went to the United States where he trained children. In 2010 he returned to Russia.

Private

Ulanow was married to Lyudmila Smirnova until the turn of the millennium. The son Nikolai was a soloist in the ice shows “ Holiday on Ice ” and “ Disney On Ice ” for 10 years and then founded the figure skating school “Dinastija” in St. Petersburg. The daughter Irina tried her hand at figure skating without much success and competed in pair skating with Alexander Smirnov and Maxim Trankov . After her career, she appeared on the Disney On Ice show for six years.

In the 2010s Ulanow remarried; in this marriage a son was born to him.

During his sports career he had an affair with the GDR figure skater Gabriele Seyfert .

Results

Pair skating

(with Irina Rodnina )

Competition / year	1968	1969	1970	1971	1972
winter Olympics					1.
World championships		1.	1.	1.	1.
European championships	5.	1.	1.	1.	1.
Soviet championships	3.	3.	1.	1.

(with Lyudmila Smirnowa )

Competition / year	1973	1974
World championships	2.	2.
European championships	2.	3.
Soviet championships	3.

Web links

Commons : Alexei Ulanov  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Alexei Nikolajewitsch Ulanow in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )