Tatiana Tarasova


Tatiana Anatolyevna Tarasova 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 have won a total of eight Olympic gold medals in three of the four Olympic figure skating disciplines, in addition to 41 gold medals at the European and World championships.

Personal life

Tatiana Tarasova is the daughter of Anatoli Tarasov, a famed ice hockey coach, who introduced her to figure skating at the age of five. She lived for more than a decade in Simsbury, Connecticut before moving back to Russia in 2006. She is the widow of Vladimir Krainev, who died in April 2011.

Competitive career

Tarasova competed in pair skating with Aleksandr Tikhomirov and Georgi Proskurin. With Proskurin, she was a two-time Soviet national medalist. They finished 7th at the 1965 World Championships and 4th at the 1966 European Championships. At 18 years of age, Tarasova sustained a career-ending injury.

Results

with Proskurin

Later career

Tarasova started coaching at age 19, at her father's insistence. Her most notable students have been Alexei Yagudin, Ilia Kulik, Natalia Bestemianova / Andrei Bukin, Oksana Grishuk / Evgeni Platov, Ekaterina Gordeeva / Sergei Grinkov, Marina Klimova / Sergey Ponomarenko, and Irina Rodnina / Alexander Zaitsev.
In the mid-1980s, Tarasova launched the Russian All-Stars, an ice ballet. She coached for ten years at Simsbury, Connecticut's International Skating Center before announcing her retirement from full-time coaching and moving back to Russia in 2006.
Her students have included:
Tarasova is assisted by choreographer Jeanetta Folle.

Honours and awards

Tarasova was awarded Order of Friendship of Peoples. In March 2008, she was inducted into the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame.