Sergei Nikolayevich Volkov

Sergei Volkov
Full name	Sergei Nikolayevich Volkov
nation	Soviet Union
birthday	April 19, 1949
place of birth	Moscow
date of death	August 31, 1990
Place of death	Kharkov
Career
discipline	Single run
Medal table
World Cup medals 1 × 1 × 0 × EM medals 0 × 1 × 0 ×
World figure skating championships silver Munich 1974 Men's gold Colorado Springs 1975 Men's  European figure skating championships silver Zagreb 1974 Men's

Sergei Nikolajewitsch Wolkow ( Russian Сергей Николаевич Волков ; born April 19, 1949 in Moscow , † August 31, 1990 near Kharkov ) was a Soviet figure skater who competed for the USSR and Spartak Moscow in a single run . He is the world champion of 1975 .

Sergei Volkov was a member of the Soviet national figure skating team for ten years. He reached the peak of his long career in the mid-1970s.

He was the first Soviet figure skater to win the gold medal in an individual competition at world championships .

After he appeared as a Soviet junior champion in 1966, he succeeded in winning the Soviet championship again ten years later. Sergei Volkov took part in a total of two Olympic Games , four world championships and eight European championships .

Life

Sergei Volkov started figure skating at the age of six. His first teacher was Pyotr Tichonow (Russian Петр Петрович Тихонов). From 1959 he was trained by Viktor Kudrjawzew (Russian Виктор Николаевич Кудрявцев). Among the children who trained with Sergej in the same group was Alexander Lakernik (Russian Александр Рафаилович Лакерник), who now serves as the chairman of the ISU's technical commission. The press mentions Sergei Volkov very little. This has to do with the fact that its strength was the so-called compulsory program, which was rated with 50 percent until the introduction of the short program in 1975, but was held in camera and therefore had no media impact. Sergei Volkov was seen as closed and highly sensitive, but on the other hand as ambitious and extremely hard on himself. He was the perfect compulsory runner. The lead, which he regularly held after the compulsory program, was lost again as the competition progressed, as the number of his jumps was hardly greater than the number of his falls. What is characteristic of his class, however, is that his few fall-free lectures immediately led to the winning of medals. In his 1975 World Championship freestyle in Colorado Springs , he managed two triple jumps: a salchow and a toe loop . A year earlier in Munich he lost to Jan Hoffmann from the GDR, as he had to skip the Lutz and the Flip due to an injury .

Not only his weak jump, but also his bad luck with injuries had repeatedly pushed Sergei Volkov out of the medal ranks. At the 1974 European Championships in Zagreb , he started with a broken toe and still won silver. His appearance in 1975 in Colorado Springs was a real hoot . After the Soviet team had arrived a month before the start of the competitions, Sergei Volkov suffered such a serious knee injury during the first training session that he could not continue training. So he went into the competition with a month's training deficit, beat the reigning European champion, his compatriot Vladimir Kovalev and became world champion.

After finishing his active career in 1978, Sergei Volkov was the head coach of the youth national team until 1982. He then worked for his club Spartak Moscow as a children's trainer. His students included the Vice European Champion of 2002, Alexander Abt . 1986/1987 the world champion and four-time European champion Alexander Fadejew trained with Sergei Volkov . In February 1990, Sergej Volkov went to Austria as a coach , but returned to his home country after just four months due to a serious illness ( stomach cancer ), which he died in August of the same year. His grave is in the cemetery in the Kunzewo district of Moscow .

Sergei Volkov has three children: Alexander, b. 1977 (from the 1972 marriage with Ludmilla Olechowa, who appeared as a pair runner together with her brother Andrej), as well as the twins Katharina and Anastasia, born. April 27, 1985 (from his marriage to Oxana, a lecturer at the MISiS Metallurgical Institute in Moscow).

Sergei Volkov's sister Elena Buryak (Russian Елена Буряк) works as an international judge.

Results

Competition / year	1968	1969	1970	1971	1972	1973	1974	1975	1976	1977
winter Olympics	18th								5.
World championships			7th		10.		2.	1.
European championships	12.	7th	5.	6th		5.	2.	4th	5.
Soviet championships	4th	3.	2.	2.	2.	3.	1.	2.	1.	3.

Web links

• Sergei Nikolajewitsch Wolkow in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )