Smirnova Lyudmila: biography of an athlete and actress

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Smirnova Lyudmila is a famous Soviet figure skater and actress. In her professional career, she competed in pair skating. At the Olympics in Sapporo, she even won a silver medal together with Andrey Suraykin.

Biography of the actress

Smirnova Lyudmila was born in 1949 in Leningrad. I have been figure skating since the age of 6. The first coaches worked with her in the Leningrad society "Spartak". Her mentor there was the honored coach of the USSR Viktor Nikolaevich Kudryavtsev.

Smirnova Lyudmila was in the Soviet national team in 1968, when she was 19 years old. Specialized in pair skating. She won three silver medals at the World Championships and three more times became the second at the European Championships with Suraykin.

With a new partner, Alexei Ulanov, she won two more silver medals at the world championship, became a prize-winner at the European championship.

Sapporo Olympics

Smirnova Lyudmila, whose biography was closely connected with figure skating, achieved the greatest success in her career in 1972, when she went to the first Olympic Games in her career.

Smirnova and Suraikin came to the competition among contenders for medals. But they had serious competitors - Irina Rodnina and Alexei Ulanov, who seemed invincible to many.

Both in the compulsory and free programs Smirnova and Suraikin showed only second results. Olympic gold was taken away by the favorites of the games. Sapporo's bronze medals went to a pair of figure skaters from the GDR - Manuela Grosz and Uwe Kagelmann.

Private life

Now Lyudmila Smirnova works as a coach. During her career, she was awarded the title of "Honored Master of Sports of the USSR and Russia", and four years ago the title of "Honored Coach of Russia".

It is worth noting that after the Olympic Games in Sapporo Smirnova married her rival - Ulanov, began to perform with him. But they did not achieve great success in sports.

But they had a son, Nikolai, who also became a master of sports in figure skating. They also had a daughter, Irina, who paired on ice with Maxim Trankov and Alexander Smirnov, but did not achieve success.

Actress career

Like many figure skaters in the Soviet Union, Lyudmila Smirnova, whose photo is in this article, tried her hand on the big screen. Mostly in films dedicated to figure skating.

Her debut took place back in 1970 in the documentary "Young Skaters". The 21-year-old athlete took part in the newsreel of the Soviet Sport publication. The issue was also dedicated to other figure skaters - Elena Alexandrova,Andrey Suraykin, Yuri Ovchinnikov.

In the same year, the heroine of our article starred in another documentary called "Parade on Ice". Director Irina Venzher brilliantly shows the exciting performances of the winners of the recent European Championship. Skaters demonstrate demonstration numbers on the ice of the Leningrad Yubileiny Sports Palace.

In 1971, Smirnova starred in Igor Belyaev's documentary "This Amazing Sport". The tape was entirely dedicated to the USSR figure skating championship, which took place in Riga. Smirnova became one of the main characters in this picture. Together with Suraykin, they fought their key rivals - Rodnina and Ulanov. And again unsuccessfully, only the second place. Bronze, by the way, went to a pair of Galina Karelina and Grigory Proskurin.

In the same 1971, Smirnova again starred in a documentary. This time it's Boris Nebylitsky's "Stars of Figure Skating" tape. In the picture you can see the amazing performances of Soviet figure skaters, who at that time were considered among the best in the world.

The film itself is dedicated to international demonstration performances, which in March 1971 were held for several days in the capital's Luzhniki Sports Palace. In addition to the athletes already familiar from this article, the ice went out: Jutta Müller, Stanislav Zhuk, Alexander Gorshkov, Sergey Chetverukhin, Jan Hoffman, Ondrej Nepela, Karin Magnussen, Sonya Morgenstern, Anzhelika Buk, Beatrice Shuba and many others.

Two onice

Many Soviet viewers remember Lyudmila Smirnova from the documentary "Two on Ice". The actress played herself in Igor Grigoriev's film, which was released in 1974.

The picture is primarily dedicated to the Soviet school of figure skating. He talks about its most famous and honored representatives. Among them is Smirnova. Although in 1974 the main attention, of course, is given to the pair of Zaitsev and Rodnina. Their distinguishing features were good physical preparation, programs in which there are always a lot of difficult elements: complex step sequences, jumps, spins and twists.

All this was also woven into the programs, which should not only be technically flawless, but also interesting, emotional and creative. About Smirnova, of course, is also described in the tape. After all, she and her partner in those years were the main competitors of Rodnina and Zaitsev.