Athletistic / Figure skating. On February 24, Honored Figure Skating Coach of Russia Eteri Tutberidze celebrates his birthday. In 2024, the legendary mentor turned 50. This is the best time to talk about your life journey and professional peaks.
Eteri Tutberidze was born in Moscow into a large family. She started figure skating at the age of 4.5 and her first coach was Evgenia Zelikova, but she soon came under the guidance of Eduard Pliner, Zelikova’s husband. This mentor is known for his work with Olympic ice dancing champion from the 1988 Games in Calgary (Canada) Natalia Bestemyanova.
Eteri was unable to continue skating on her own due to a serious spinal injury, because of which she was forced to take several months off. After recovery, the girl turned to dancing and performed for the CSKA sports society, where she trained in the same group with Ilya Averbukh, Marina Anisina and Oksana Grischuk. Before coming of age, Eteri managed to train under the guidance of Tatyana Tarasova, Elena Tchaikovskaya, Natalya Linichuk and Gennady Ackerman – masters of world figure skating.
Departure for the USA
Due to lack of funding, Tutberidze ended his sports career at the age of 18. The year is 1992, the USSR is collapsing and the country lets many things, particularly sports, take their course for several years. The United States took advantage of this and invited Eteri to the ice show. Already at the age of 18, the girl left her entire native country and went to live in America. She flew to Oklahoma as part of the Russian ballet, where she immediately ran into trouble.
American authorities did not allow entry into the country of the entire group, but only residents of Moscow (including Eteri). The fact is that athletes from other cities had invalid passports, which is why they had to re-register their documents for more than four weeks, without being able to compete. While his ballet partners resolved their problems, Tutberidze and some of his colleagues simply found themselves without money, because they could not perform.
Photo source: personal archive of Eteri Tutberidze
“To avoid starvation, we ate in Baptist churches. There we had to attend the service, then water and a few small sandwiches were brought to the parishioners… At the skating rink we were given ice cream, although this did not happen right away . We train daily from 5 a.m. to 7 a.m.– Tutberidze remembers that time.
When the entire troupe received permission to work in the United States, their contracts were terminated. After that, some decided to return to Russia, while others tried to stay in America and find other jobs. Among the latter was Tutberidze, who had to live in homeless shelters.
On April 19, 1995, a terrible terrorist attack took place in Oklahoma. A car bomb exploded in the city center, killing 168 people and injuring more than 600. Tutberidze witnessed these terrible events, since at that time she lived opposite the building that exploded. Eteri, who was at home, was deafened by the shock wave, after which she inexplicably found herself on the street with a toothbrush in her hand and wearing only a bathrobe. A firefighter noticed her on the street and took the Russian woman away from the epicenter of events. After meeting Eteri, the firefighter invited the figure skater and her partner Nikolai Apter to live with his family for a while.
Very high
It was this firefighter who helped Eteri find the Ice Capades company. There Tutberidze and Apter were invited to perform in one of the ice shows. The problem was that the show was in Cincinnati and the couple didn’t have the money to get there. There would have been no happiness, but misfortune helped: as victims of the terrorist attack, Eteri and Nikolai each received 1.2 thousand dollars, with which they bought a used car and was able to go to Cincinnati.
There Tutberidze and Apter experienced their first success, but the work was such that they no longer had the strength for anything else. Having found their feet, they moved to San Antonio and opened their own school, where they began training children and adults. It looked like Eteri was going to settle in Texas for the long haul, but she was drawn home. Tutberidze constantly dreamed of returning to his homeland and being closer to his parents.
Return to Russia and first success
Already having a certain status in American figure skating, Eteri Tutberidze once again decides to radically change his life and flies to Moscow. However, at that time she was almost unknown to everyone in her native country and could not immediately get a job worthy of her talent. For several months, Tutberidze was looking for work, until in 2008 she got a job at Moscow Sports School No. 37. Five years later, by the decision of the Moscow authorities, this school was transformed into the Khrustalny branch of the Sambo-70 Sports and Educational Center.
The first major success of coach Tutberidze came at the beginning of 2014. In January of the same year, the European Championships took place in Budapest (Hungary), where Yulia Lipnitskaya won gold in women’s singles and Sergei Voronov won silver in the men’s singles. They were both students of Eteri Georgievna.
Photo source: FFKKR
A month later, in February 2014, the Winter Olympics took place in Sochi. There, a student of Tutberidze, fifteen-year-old Yulia Lipnitskaya, helped the Russian team win an Olympic gold medal in the team competitions. It was a real feeling!
Conveyor of Champions
Success with Yulia Lipnitskaya breathed new life into Eteri Tutberidze’s group. Hundreds, even thousands of young skaters dreamed of joining her. The mentor easily survived the break with Lipnitskaya, who left for Alexey Urmanov in the spring of 2015, and brought a new student to the top of world figure skating. In the 2015/2016 season, a real breakthrough in results awaited Evgenia Medvedev. Already in March 2016 she became world and European champion, and in 2017 she repeated the same success and entered the Olympic season as the big favorite to win.
However, at the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang (South Korea), Medvedeva was not destined to climb the top step of the podium, as she was displaced by another student of Tutberidze, Alina Zagitova. At the moment, Alina can be considered the main student of Tutberidze’s career, since she became the first Russian figure skater to win all the titles of world figure skating: gold at the Olympics, at the Championships world championships, the European Championships and victory at the ISU Grand Prix. final.
Photo source: ISU
The next Olympic cycle has become a real benefit for Tutberidze’s students. Interestingly, it was no longer about Zagitova and Medvedeva, but about Anna Shcherbakova, Alexandra Trusova and Kamila Valieva. Shcherbakova became world champion (2021) and winner of the 2022 Olympic Games in Beijing (China). Trusova is the first figure skater in history to perform a quadruple lutz and a toe loop, two quadruple jumps in a program and a four-three stunt, as well as five quadruples in a free program. And the potential of Kamila Valieva could compete in absentia with Alina Zagitova, but doping problems interfered with her sporting destiny.
These days
After the 2022 Olympic Games in the capital of the Celestial Empire, Russian figure skating found itself isolated from international competitions due to events in Ukraine. Because of this, Eteri Tutberidze’s life has changed a lot. Her daughter Diana Davis and her partner Gleb Smolkin joined the Georgian national team, and Eteri Georgievna’s pupils are obliged to participate in competitions in Russia. This, as well as the problems associated with the disqualification of Kamila Valieva, could not but affect Tutberidze’s motivation. For example, in the 2023/2024 season, Eteri Georgievna stopped personally attending all stages of the Russian Grand Prix and often sends her students there with other specialists.
But it’s not that bad. First, in the fall of 2023, the Eteri Tutberidze Figure Skating Center opened in Moscow. This is now where the honored coach of Russia works and builds champions. And at the beginning of 2024, Tutberidze agreed to become the host of the reality show “Big Girls”, broadcast on the Friday TV channel. In this project, Eteri Georgievna helps girls lose weight and get rid of mental problems.
Currently, the champion of Russia and winner of the Spartakiade 2024 Adelia Petrosyan, the winner of the national championship among juniors Daniil Samsonov, the champion of Russia in show jumping Margarita Bazylyuk, as well as the European champions in pair skating Alexandra Boykova / Dmitry Kozlovsky train under Tutburidze. . I would like to believe that very soon Russia will return to international competitions and they, along with many other students of Eteri Tutberidze, will bring our country well-deserved medals at the Olympic Games and World Championships.
Nikita Serbakov, Athletistic
Source: Sport
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