Alexei Nikolaevich Ulanov (russian: Алексей Николаевич Уланов; born 4 November 1947) is a retired

pair skater Pair skating is a figure skating discipline defined by the International Skating Union (ISU) as "the skating of two persons in unison who perform their movements in such harmony with each other as to give the impression of genuine Pair Skating a ...

who represented the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

. With

Irina Rodnina Irina Konstantinovna Rodnina ( rus, Ирина Константиновна Роднина, p=ɪˈrʲinə kənstɐnˈtʲinəvnə rədʲnʲɪˈna; born 12 September 1949) is a Russian politician and retired figure skating, figure skater, who is ...

, he is the 1972 Olympic champion and a four-time (1969–1972)

world champion A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game, ...

. With his then-wife

Lyudmila Smirnova Lyudmila Stanislavovna Smirnova (russian: Людмила Станиславовна Смирнова; born July 21, 1949, in Leningrad) is a retired pair skater who competed for the Soviet Union. With partner Andrei Suraikin, she is the 197 ...

, he is a two-time world silver medalist.

Career

Ulanov began figure skating in 1954 and became a member of the USSR National Team in 1964. Rodnina / Ulanov began skating together in the 1960s and won several

World In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...

and

European Championships The European Championships is a multi-sport tournament which brings together the existing European Championships of some of the continent's leading sports every four years. The inaugural edition in 2018 was staged by the host cities of Berlin, ...

. They were coached by

Stanislav Zhuk Stanislav Alekseyevich Zhuk (russian: Станислав Алексеевич Жук, ; 25 January 1935 – 1 November 1998) was a pair skater who represented the Soviet Union. With his wife Nina, he won three silver medals at the European Figur ...

and trained at the Armed Forces sports society in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

. The culmination of their career was their 1972 Olympics win. By this point Ulanov had fallen in love with fellow skater

. Rodnina and Ulanov separated, and Ulanov began skating with Smirnova. Smirnova and Ulanov competed together for two seasons. They won silver medals at the 1973 World and

. The next season, they won European bronze and world silver medals. Ulanov was awarded the

Order of the Red Banner of Labour The Order of the Red Banner of Labour (russian: Орден Трудового Красного Знамени, translit=Orden Trudovogo Krasnogo Znameni) was an order of the Soviet Union established to honour great deeds and services to th ...

in 1972.

Personal life

Ulanov and Smirnova married and later divorced after having two children, Nikolai Ulanov and Irina Ulanova. Irina became a pair skater, who skated with Alexander Smirnov and

Maxim Trankov Maxim Leonidovich Trankov (russian: Максим Леонидович Траньков; born 7 October 1983) is a Russian pair skater. With Tatiana Volosozhar, he is a two-time 2014 Olympic champion in the pairs and in team events, the 2013 ...

for about three years. Ulanov moved to the United States in 1995 and currently lives in South Florida.

Results

With Rodnina

With Smirnova

References

External links

Rodnina and Ulanov pair profileSmirnova and Ulanov competition results

Navigation

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ulanov, Alexei 1947 births Living people Figure skaters at the 1972 Winter Olympics Olympic figure skaters of the Soviet Union Soviet male pair skaters Russian male pair skaters Figure skaters from Moscow Olympic gold medalists for the Soviet Union Armed Forces sports society athletes Olympic medalists in figure skating World Figure Skating Championships medalists European Figure Skating Championships medalists Medalists at the 1972 Winter Olympics