Vaitsekhovskaya on the sale of skater OI Zaitsev’s gold medal: “There are new entries that confirm that the lot was stolen”

Olympic diving champion Yelena Vaytsekhovskaya says the 1980 Winter Games gold medal auctioned by Soviet figure skater Alexander Zaitsev was stolen.

Earlier, auction site RR Auction reported that Zaitsev’s medal sold for $93,748. Zaitsev won the 1980 Games in a duet with Irina Rodnina.

– In the history of the Olympic gold medal of Alexander Zaitsev sold at auction (with which, it turned out, the ex-figure skater himself had nothing to do), new entries appeared, as they say, which confirm: the lot was stolen.

As the skater himself explained, after breaking up with Irina Rodnina, he nevertheless received some of the awards, he just did not immediately remember about them.

The divorce became such an emotional event that at that time the ex-spouses did not have time for medals – Alexander simply moved his affairs (including some awards) to the country. But in 2000, the dacha was looted and burned down.

“When I learned that my medal was sold somewhere, the first thing that came to my mind was: why the Olympic medal, and not the world championship? Figure skating was almost the only sport where medals for world championships won were actually cast in gold.

These medals therefore theoretically had an even higher value. I know that Irina gave one of these prizes to the Museum of Sports History, but after a while the museum ceased to exist and all exhibits disappeared,” Zaitsev said.

The reason the Lake Placid medal appeared at the auction also became clear. These Games were the only ones in Olympic history where the names of their owners were engraved on the awards.

Zaitsev himself and Irina Rodnina confirmed this over the phone, stating that this was an exceptional case – this is usually not practiced at the Games,” Vaitsekhovskaya RT quotes.

Zaitsev and Rodnina also won the 1976 Olympics in Innsbruck. From 1973 to 1980, the couple won all the competitions in which they participated.

TR