Elena Alexandrovna Valova

Elena Valova
Walowa and Wassiljew 1983 in Karl-Marx-Stadt
Full name	Elena Alexandrovna Valova
nation	Soviet Union
birthday	2nd January 1963
place of birth	Trud Leningrad
size	155 cm
Weight	47 kg
Career
discipline	Pair skating
Partner	Oleg Vasilyev
Trainer	Tamara Moskvina
status	resigned
End of career	1988
Medal table
Olympic medals 1 × 1 × 0 × World Cup medals 3 × 3 × 0 × EM medals 3 × 2 × 0 ×
winter Olympics gold Sarajevo 1984 Couples silver Calgary 1988 Couples  World figure skating championships gold Helsinki 1983 Couples silver Ottawa 1984 Couples gold Tokyo 1985 Couples silver Geneva 1986 Couples silver Cincinnati 1987 Couples gold Budapest 1988 Couples  European figure skating championships silver Dortmund 1983 Couples gold Budapest 1984 Couples gold Gothenburg 1985 Couples gold Copenhagen 1986 Couples silver Sarajevo 1987 Couples

Jelena Alexandrovna Walowa ( Russian Елена Александровна Валова ; born January 2, 1963 in Leningrad ) is a former Russian figure skater who started in pair skating for the Soviet Union .

Valova started figure skating at a small public ice rink near her home. She began professional and regular training when her grandmother registered her in a children's figure skating group. She was 7 years old. Tamara Moskvina recommended that she try pair skating because of her skills. Oleg Vasilyev was chosen as her partner. This is how the sports couple Jelena Walowa / Oleg Wassiljew came into being. They were 15 and 18 years old. Her only coach during her amateur and professional career was Tamara Moskwina.

At their European championship debut in 1983 in Dortmund , Walowa and Wassilijew were runner-up European champions behind Sabine Baeß and Tassilo Thierbach from the GDR. A little later they defeated the GDR couple at their first world championship in Helsinki and thus became world champions straight away. In 1984 they won their first European title in Budapest . In Sarajevo they became Olympic champions at their first Olympic Games ahead of Caitlin and Peter Carruthers from the USA and their compatriots Larissa Selesnjowa and Oleg Makarow . At the World Championships in Ottawa, the reigning Olympic champions were defeated by Canadians Barbara Underhill and Paul Martini and could not defend their world title. In 1985, Walowa and Wassilijew made it for the first and only time in their career to become both European and world champions in the same year. They succeeded in doing this at the European Championships in Gothenburg and the World Championships in Tokyo ahead of Selesnjowa and Makarow. In 1986, Walowa and Vasilyev won for the first and only time in their careers at the Soviet championships and were European champions for the third and last time in Copenhagen . In Geneva they were runner-up behind their compatriots Yekaterina Gordejewa and Sergei Grinkow , who they could defeat at the European Championships. In 1987 they won the silver medal at both the European Championships and the World Championships , first losing to Selesnjowa / Makarow and then, as at the World Cup last year, Gordejewa / Grinkow. In 1988 they took part in their second Olympic Games. In Calgary they managed to win the silver medal behind Gordejewa and Grinkow as defending champions. The final of their careers was the 1988 World Cup in Budapest , where they became world champions for the third time by beating their two biggest national competitors to the places.

Jelena Walowa and Oleg Wassilijew were the first couple to show a triple jump side by side, the first couple to show a triple jump in the combination side by side, and the first Soviet figure skaters to still perform professionally after their amateur careers.

Jelena Walowa and Oleg Wassilijew were married from 1984 to 1992. Jelena Walowa is married again and has a son. She works as a trainer in the USA.

Walowa and Wassilijew 1987 in Berlin

Results

Pair skating

(with Oleg Wassiljew )

Competition / year	1982	1983	1984	1985	1986	1987	1988
winter Olympics			1.				2.
World championships		1.	2.	1.	2.	2.	1.
European championships		2.	1.	1.	1.	2.
Soviet championships	3.			2.	1.

Web links

Commons : Jelena Walowa  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Jelena Alexandrovna Walowa in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )