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Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov first made headlines ever since 1986, winning almost every single world championship they had entered. Gordeeva first met and was paired with Grinkov when she was only a pixie girl at the age of 11 and he was a growing boy at age 15. Though Grinkov was very reluctant by this, little did he know that it truly was a match made in heaven. They trained and skated hard, skating with all their bodies could strain until they won their gold medal in the Calgary '88 Olympics. Her, with her small tiny body skating in unison along with Grinkov, who was many inches taller than she was. They were amazing, being the one of two pairs that could complete a throw quadruple twist in the air.
What was unexpected was for the two of them to fall in love. Their skating
grew even more artistically as they grew more in love, and in the summer of
1991, Gordeeva and Grinkov got married. A year later, what made their relationship
more intense was the child that they both made, a happy and beautfiul baby named Daria.
Their skating became more as one once Daria was born, with a deep passion that other
skating husband-and-wife teams did not have. Their unison was uncanny, what with her
height being 5'1" and Grinkov being 5'11" their spins are at the exact speed and position,
the speed exactly the same. They were a pair that no one was able to compete with.
After Daria was born, Gordeeva and Grinkov once again won another Olympic Gold medal
in 1994 with the hauntingly sophisticated and beautiful program of Beethoven's Moonlight
Sonata. Their maturation, experience is beyond that of any other pairs teams and it shows.
Their life story is like a romance, with two lovers, a husband and wife, partners at works,
always together. If you thought nothing was perfect, their relationship was. They had the
perfect marriage, the perfect job, the perfect child, the perfect life. But everything
ended much too soon. The morning of November 20, 1995 was the end of the fairy tale like romance. Sergei Grinkov died at the age of 28 from a genetic defect that gave him a heart attack 24 hours before he fell to the ice of Lake Placid. This was where he and his wife (as well as the rest of the cast of the tour of Stars On Ice) were having a rehearsal. Gordeeva herself said the words, "Maybe it was too perfect." Gordeeva became a widow at much too young of an age, 24.
Gordeeva and Grinkov skated like two diamonds on the ice; both diamonds shining with an
individual intensity, but their hearts skated as one. Sergei, with his cocky handsome grin
always looking at Ekaterina, fragile but beautiful, looking with such great silent passion
and love that one can only be mesmerized by their gazes. Even though they had been married for
four years, they acted as though they were newlyweds, catching kisses here and there in practise,
though they did not show it to the world. Their love was not shown through their hugs or kisses,
or anything physical, it was by the fleeting glances that they gave one another, the gestures,
the actions as both skate on the ice and floated off the ice. Every moment, every look, every touch
has a feeling of love, of warmth, of softness and of sweetness. Each stroke a tale, each spin a
snowflake. Sergei loved to show off Ekaterina, and he did it well. But when one looked at the two,
they looked absolutely perfect. Kurt Browning, a member of the Stars On Ice tour and friend of G&G's
once said, "Their program has one big flaw. It doesn't last long enough. I wanted
it to go on forever."
In February, in the Hartford Civic Centre, Ekaterina, or Katia as her friends call her,
skated in a tribute to Sergei to the sad but beautiful strains of Mahler's 5th Symphony Adagio.
Those were the first few steps of a new beginning and a final goodbye as it warmed our hearts to
see the fresh pain and grief she was carrying in her tiny, thin starving body.
Tears were streaming down her face saying, "I miss him, I miss him" making almost every
person watching, cry along with her. But it was Daria's face that she looked for when she
finished her program and also for strength. That was the farewell to a wonderful friend,
husband, father, and man.
Now, almost one and a half years after his death, Katia has started a new life. In October
of 1996, she skated for the first time as a singles skater to Rachmaninov's Elegie.
Looking uncomfortable and lonely, she completes a breathtaking performance with no trace of
a smile. And now, it is April 1997 and Katia looks more and more comfortable by herself,
grooving on the ice with Kristi Yamaguchi, Rosalyn Sumners and Jill Trenary smiling that
unmistakable smile that everyone has grown to love. "I feel as if Stars On Ice is my family,"
smiles Katia with her continually improving English. "They have been there for me from the
beginning. It feels good to know I have friends. Before, with Sergei, It was only him
that I saw and no one else. But now, I feel as if I am just now discovering the
whole world before me."
As Katia skates, one cannot miss the shadows of someone lurking behind her. Perhaps
it is Sergei? "I feel as if I need to skate. If I don't skate, I think I would not be
able to go on. I also think that if I don't skate, people will not remember Sergei so
I have to skate," says Katia. With her single skating, she carries the same speed, the
same awesome artistic ability and the same charm - but jumping triples and layback spins
are a very new thing for Katia. "I don't know how she does it!" is the response Kristi
Yamaguchi gets from Katia when she completes a triple lutz or salchow. But one still must
say that Katia captures the image of a beautiful skater, with or without Sergei. In a recent
Primetime Live interview, she was asked if she thought she would ever fall in love again.
"I don't know" came the response. The interviewer then spoke the words, "I think so" and her
emotional response was "I hope so too."
We all think so too Katia.
A New Life is Coming. |
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