Samvel (or Samuel) Gezalian ( hy, Սամվել Գյոզալյան, russian: Самвел Гезалян; born 12 September 1970) is an Armenian former competitive ice dancer 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 ...

Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by R ...

, and

Armenia Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ''Ox ...

in international competition. With

Tatiana Navka Tatyana Aleksandrovna Navka (russian: Татьяна Александровна Навка; born 13 April 1975) is a Russian former competitive ice dancer and wife of Dmitry Peskov. With her dance partner Roman Kostomarov, she is the 2006 Olymp ...

, he is the 1991 Skate America and Nations Cup champion and placed 11th at the

1994 Winter Olympics The 1994 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XVII Olympic Winter Games ( no, De 17. olympiske vinterleker; nn, Dei 17. olympiske vinterleikane) and commonly known as Lillehammer '94, was an international winter multi-sport event held fro ...

for Belarus. With

Ksenia Smetanenko Ksenia Smetanenko, married name: Gonchar (russian: Ксения Гончар (Сметаненко), born 26 March 1979) is a former ice dancer who competed internationally for Russia and Armenia. With Samuel Gezalian, she is the 1997 Golden Spi ...

, he is the 1997 Golden Spin of Zagreb champion and competed at the

1998 Winter Olympics The 1998 Winter Olympics, officially known as the and commonly known as Nagano 1998 ( ja, 長野1998), was a winter multi-sport event held from 7 to 22 February 1998, mainly in Nagano, Japan, with some events taking place in the ...

for Armenia.

Career

Early years in skating

Gezalian began learning ice dancing at age ten in

Odessa Odesa (also spelled Odessa) is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrativ ...

, where he was coached by Svetlana Rubleva and Boris Rublev. He later moved to

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 ...

. By 1985, he was skating with Maria Anikanova, coached by

Tatiana Tarasova Tatiana Anatolyevna Tarasova (; born 13 February 1947) is a Russian figure skating coach and national figure skating team adviser. Tarasova has been coach to more world and Olympic champions than any other coach in skating history. Her students h ...

. In 1988, the duo joined Natalia Dubova's group following Tarasova's decision to stop coaching.

Partnership with Navka

After Anikanova ended her competitive career, Gezalian teamed up with

. Representing the Soviet Union, Navka/Gezalian won gold at the

1991 Skate America The 1991 Skate America was held at the Oakland Coliseum Arena in Oakland, California. Medals were awarded in the disciplines of men's singles, ladies' singles, pair skating, and ice dancing Ice dance (sometimes referred to as ice dancing) is ...

and

1991 Nations Cup The 1991 Nations Cup was held in Gelsenkirchen. Medals were awarded in the disciplines of men's singles, ladies' singles, pair skating, and ice dancing Ice dance (sometimes referred to as ice dancing) is a discipline of figure skating that h ...

. Following the Soviet Union's dissolution, Navka/Gezalian chose to skate for Belarus. They placed ninth in their debut at the European and World Championships, in 1993. In the 1993–94 season, Navka/Gezalian won silver at the

1993 Skate Canada International The 1993 Skate Canada International was held in Ottawa, Ontario on November 4–7. Medals were awarded in the disciplines of men's singles, ladies' singles, pair skating, and ice dancing Ice dance (sometimes referred to as ice dancing) is a d ...

and placed fourth at the

1993 NHK Trophy The NHK Trophy was held in Chiba on December 9-12. Medals were awarded in the disciplines of men's singles, ladies' singles, pair skating Pair skating is a figure skating discipline defined by the International Skating Union (ISU) as "the ska ...

. They competed at the

Lillehammer Lillehammer () is a municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Gudbrandsdal. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Lillehammer. Some of the more notable villages in the municip ...

, placing 11th, before achieving their career-best Worlds result, fifth at the 1994 World Championships in

Chiba Chiba may refer to: Places China * (), town in Jianli County, Jingzhou, Hubei Japan * Chiba (city), capital of Chiba Prefecture ** Chiba Station, a train station * Chiba Prefecture, a sub-national jurisdiction in the Greater Tokyo Area on ...

, Japan. In 1994–95, Navka/Gezalian won silver at the

1994 NHK Trophy The 1994 NHK Trophy was held at the Morioka Ice Arena in Morioka on December 8–11. Medals were awarded in the disciplines of men's singles, ladies' singles, pair skating, and ice dancing Ice dance (sometimes referred to as ice dancing) is a ...

and went on to achieve their best European result, fourth, at the 1995 European Championships in

Dortmund Dortmund (; Westphalian nds, Düörpm ; la, Tremonia) is the third-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne and Düsseldorf, and the eighth-largest city of Germany, with a population of 588,250 inhabitants as of 2021. It is the la ...

. Their partnership came to an end following the 1995 World Championships where they placed seventh.

Partnerships with Goolsbee and Smetanenko

Gezalian then teamed up with American-born

Jennifer Goolsbee Jennifer Goolsbee (born September 6, 1968) is a former competitive ice dancer who is best known for her partnership with Hendryk Schamberger for Germany. With Schamberger, she is a four-time German national champion and placed ninth at the 1994 ...

to represent Germany. They won the 1997 German Figure Skating Championships. Their partnership soon ended due to Goolsbee's citizenship problems. Later in 1997, Gezalian teamed up with

to compete for his native Armenia. Placing sixth at the 1997 Karl Schäfer Memorial, they qualified a spot for Armenia at the Olympics. Smetanenko/Gezalian then won gold at the 1997 Golden Spin of Zagreb and placed 20th at the 1998 European Championships before competing at the

Nagano Nagano may refer to: Places * Nagano Prefecture, a prefecture in Japan ** Nagano (city), the capital city of the same prefecture *** Nagano 1998, the 1998 Winter Olympics *** Nagano Olympic Stadium, a baseball stadium in Nagano *** Nagano Universi ...

, where they placed 24th. They retired from competition at the end of the season.

Post-competitive career

Gezalian works as a skating coach in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Results

With Smetanenko for Armenia

With Goolsbee for Germany

With Navka for Belarus and the Soviet Union

References

Skatabase: 1990s Europeans

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gezalian, Samvel Living people Armenian male ice dancers Belarusian male ice dancers Soviet male ice dancers Olympic figure skaters for Belarus Olympic figure skaters for Armenia Figure skaters at the 1994 Winter Olympics Figure skaters at the 1998 Winter Olympics Sportspeople from Yerevan 1970 births