Nataliya Linichuk

Nataliya Linichuk and Gennady Karponosov began skating together in 1972 and won their first competition together – the 1972 Winter Universiade. They won bronze medals at the 1974 and 1977 World Championships and also finished fourth at the 1976 Winter Olympics, rising to the World’s top ice dancing pair status after Lyudmila Pakhomova and Aleksandr Gorshkov’s 1976 retirement, winning gold medals at the 1978 and 1979 World Championships. They were 1979-80 European Champions, after winning a silver medal in 1978, and bronze medals from 1974-77. The pair became Olympic champions in 1980, while winning silver at the 1980 Worlds. Karponosov and Linichuk made their last international appearance at the 1981 European Championships where they won their fifth bronze. They were also Soviet champions in 1976, 1979, 1981, taking silvers in 1975 and 1977. After retiring from sports the pair married and started to work as figure skating coaches, first in Moscow and later in Delaware, United States. As a team, they became very successful ice dance coaches, Gennady preparing the compulsory dances and Nataliya the free and original set pattern dances. They have coached multiple Russian dance couples. Currently they coach Americans Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto and Russians Oksana Domnina and Maksim Shabalin among others.