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Home > Olympics > Gold Medalists > Yelena Berezhnaya
Yelena Berezhnaya
The Olympic Games, or Olympics, is an international multi-sport event taking place every four years which comprises of summer and winter games. Though the first ancient games were held in 776 B.C, the modern games started from 1896.The unity of the 5 continents is shown on the Olympic flag by five colorful intertwined rings of red, blue, green, yellow, and black, created by Baron Pierre de Coubertin to represent atleast one color of the participating country’s national flag.
Yelena Berezhnaya was born on October 11, 1977 in Nevinnomirsk, Russia. She is a Russian figure skater. She and skating partner Anton Sikharulidze were awarded an Olympic gold medal in pairs skating at the 2002 Winter Olympics, which the pair shared with another pair from Canada after a notable judging controversy. Yelena Berezhnaya first began skating at the age of six. She immediately displayed extraordinary talent, but her hometown of Nevinnomirsk offered little opportunity for advanced level skating. In 1990, Yelena's mother, Tatiana, sent her to Moscow so that she may have an opportunity to capitalize on her talent. Although a Russian, coaches paired her first with Lativian Oleg Shliakov.
The pair went into the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan as the favorites for the gold, after having won that year's European Championship. The pair once again felt the twinge of frustration after two flawed performances with uncharacteristic mistakes. Yet, their error did not place them in poor favor with the judges, and they won a controversial silver medal ahead of the reigning World Champions Mandy Wotzel and Ingo Steuer of Germany.
In the 2001-2002 season, Canadians Jamie Sale and David Pelletier established themselves as the main rivals to Yelena and Anton. Throughout the season, both pairs had traded first and second place at most of the major competitions, and they figured to be the main contenders for the Olympic gold medal. However, in a shocking move, only four judges awarded the Canadians a first place vote, whereas five had voted for Yelena and Anton.
Yelena and Anton won the gold, and the Canadians, silver. Yet skating commentators and judges defended the outcome by pointing out that Yelena and Anton's free skate was more technically difficult in comparison to Sale and Pelletier's, which was most likely the reason for the Russian team's high technical merit marks despite the minor flaws.
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