Ekaterina Gordeeva

Ekaterina Gordeeva was born in Moscow and began figure skating at age four. She showed promise as a competitive skater, and at age 11 was paired by a coach at her sports school with 15-year-old Sergei Grinkov. As a pairs team, Gordeeva and Grinkov won the 1985 World Junior Championships in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and went on to win nearly every competition they entered, including the gold medal at the 1988 Winter Olympics. They became the most celebrated and decorated pairs skating team in the history of the sport. The skating partnership grew into a romantic relationship -- they married in 1991 and had a daughter, Daria Sergeyevna Grinkova, the following year. Gordeeva and Grinkov turned professional for a few years but returned to amateur competition and won their second Olympic gold medal in 1994. Gordeeva and her husband were inducted into the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame. In 1995, at age 28, he collapsed on the ice during a practice session and died from a massive heart attack. Gordeeva has published a memoir, My Sergei: A Love Story (1996), and an autobiographical children's book, A Letter for Daria (1998).