Ilya Kulik - biography, photo, personal life, news 2020

Biography

The ice conqueror comes from Russia. Ilya Kulik was born in the capital in 1977. I chose figure skating when I was 5 years old. He loved watching television programs with champions performing on ice, and once told his mother that he really wanted to skate like that. The woman decided that this was a good choice for the child and took him to the figure skating sports section.

Gromov, the school’s coach, began training with the boy. He liked the child’s plasticity, and, literally on the fly, the graspable elements that the instructor showed. Gromov passed on his young talent to the more experienced coach Kudryavtsev, under whose leadership at the age of 13 Ilya won his first award at a junior tournament in Norway.

Childhood and youth

The future ice conqueror was born on May 23, 1977. This happened in Moscow. At the age of five, Ilya saw figure skaters perform on TV and declared that he wanted to be like them. Realizing that the boy was not joking, Ilya’s mother took her son to the local figure skating section. Coach S. Gromov noted the boy’s artistry and amazing plasticity.

Ilya Kulik in childhood

Therefore, having taught Ilya the basics, he handed him over to a more experienced specialist, Viktor Nikolaevich Kudryavtsev, a member of the Presidium of the Figure Skating Federation. Under the leadership of Kudryavtsev, in 1990, Ilya won his first award. This happened at the Piruetten Juniors competition, held in Norway. At that time, Kulik was 13 years old. Then he realized that he really wanted to devote himself to figure skating.

Start of a sports career

His unique talent and diligence in training raise the bar for Ilya’s achievements in figure skating. By the age of 17, he had become the world's dominant male performer. His debuts at the European and World Championships in 1995 brought him gold medals. With his performances, he burst into the world of single figure skating, showing all the power of gliding, artistry in gestures, and the ability to cleanly perform the most complex elements and jumps. This is exactly how spectators remembered figure skater Ilya Kulik’s performances.

Coach T. A. Tarasova

Next season, the skater begins training with Tatyana Anatolyevna Tarasova. It was easy for her to work with Ilya, since he had innate artistry and plasticity. She suggested that the skater complicate the design of his program by adding complex artistic elements in conjunction with new jumps. Most likely, Ilya was not able to master this program, so he was very worried at the European Championships in 1996. But this particular tournament became a testing ground for new programs. However, it is worth remembering that athletes sometimes do the impossible and become winners.

“It had a sobering effect,” the skater comments on his failure. – Every athlete needs to experience this. When this happened to me, I realized that just being good is not enough. Therefore, I took appropriate measures to become the best.”

Ilya goes to the World Championship and becomes a silver medalist, losing by one vote from the judges to his opponent.

The skater regained faith in himself and confirmed that his achievements were not accidental, becoming the winner at the Russian Championships in 1997 and 1998, and won the Grand Prix final in 1997.

Olympics in Nagano

Participation in the championships and intensive training in connection with the preparation for the Olympic Games in Nagano were not in vain. We rehearsed in America, where there is no problem with renting ice. Tatyana Anatolyevna Tarasova created for Ilya a balanced program with complex choreography, which revealed both the natural artistry and musicality of the skater. The short debut is set to music by Jean-Michel Jarre. Free dance based on Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” (blues).

Thanks to his clean performances in the short and free programs, Ilya Kulik brings the most significant achievement to his biography - he becomes the champion of the XVIII Winter Olympic Games of 1998 in Nagano (Japan) among men's singles figure skaters. If we look at the performance “under a microscope,” then he was the only one who performed all the jumps cleanly. Only Ilya made the fourth element - a sheepskin coat. He completed a series of five triple jumps and two triple Axels. None of the participants had such a rich program.

Kulik's demonstration performances before the Japanese public were no less interesting. This is Samurai Mortal Kombat. The number is not very simple, but effective. Ilya became the first singles skater whom Tatyana Tarasova brought to the top of Olympus.

The athlete's career could continue. In 1998, he turned 21, but after suffering a serious back injury in 1999, he decided to stop performing. Ilya Kulik’s sporting achievements include first places at the World and European Championships, Grand Prix finals and victory at the Olympic Games in Nagano. And this was in that short period of time when the young skater took off, from 1990 to 1998.

Kulik Ilya Aleksandrovich (figure skater)

My mother introduced me to figure skating at the age of 5. The first coach is V. Gromov. Then he trained with V.N. Kudryavtsev. The first significant victory was at the age of 13, in Norway, at the Piruetten Juniors competition in 1990. In 1994 he won the Russian Junior Championship. At the Russian Championship in December 1994, he took 2nd place and was included in the national team. He made a sensation at the 1995 European Championships, making his debut and immediately becoming a champion. His main rival, Alexey Urmanov, made a mistake in the short program and took 6th place, which allowed Kulik to beat him in the end, despite finishing second in the free program.

Since the 1995/96 season, coach T. A. Tarasova has helped stage the programs, significantly complicating the choreography and oversaturating it with connecting elements. Kulik lost the 1996 European Championship, unable to cope with the free program, but at the 1996 World Championships he completed it (including two triple Axel jumps), becoming a silver medalist, losing by one judge's vote.

From mid-May 1996 he moved from V.N. Kudryavtsev to T.A. Tarasova. The 1996/97 season was relatively unsuccessful; in the final of the championship series (analogous to the current Grand Prix final), Ilya performed a purely quadruple sheepskin coat. In 1998, T. A. Tarasova staged the most balanced programs, extremely concentrating Kulik on the main competition - the Olympic Games (the 1998 European Championship was missed), which allowed him to become an Olympic champion. In a short program in the avant-garde style to the music of J.-M. Jarre, Kulik performed a purely triple axel-triple toe loop cascade and took the lead. In an exceptionally harmonious free program, with elegant choreography to the music of J. Gershwin, with successfully inscribed elements, Kulik, the only one of all the participants, performed all the jumps absolutely cleanly, including the only one of the leaders, a quadruple jump - a sheepskin coat, two triple axels (one in a cascade with a triple toe loop), as well as five triple jumps.

In 1999 he began his professional career, maintaining the complexity of the programs, and was able to win the “Champions on Ice” and “Stars on Ice” tournaments. In 2000, he starred in one of the roles in the film “Center Stage”.

In 1999 he graduated from the Russian State Academy of Physical Culture.
Personal life
On June 10, 2001, in San Francisco, he married Ekaterina Gordeeva, and on June 15, 2002, the couple had a daughter, Lisa Kulik. For several years (from 2003-2007) they lived in Connecticut in the city of Avon. In the summer of 2007 we moved to California to Newport Beach.

Life outside of sports

Since 1999, Ilya turned professional. While living in the States, he took part in the American projects “Champions on Ice” and “Stars on Ice”.

They brought Ilya popularity overseas. In 2000, he tried himself as an actor, playing a ballet dancer in the film Center Stage. In 1999, I. A. Kulik received higher education, graduating from the Russian State Academy of Physical Culture.

In 2001, Ilya Averbukh invited the champion to take part in the Russian version of the show “Dancing with the Stars.” In 2008, Ilya and Ekaterina Gordeeva, by this time his wife, went to Moscow to film the Ice Age 2 program.

Personal life of Ilya Kulik

More than 18 years have passed since Ilya completed his sports career. He stopped appearing at major competitions. The audience that was rooting for this young, talented skater forgot him. New talents took their place, and the younger generation of fans turned their attention to them. This is due to the fact that after leaving the big sport, Ilya Kulik remained in America and continued to participate in various shows in this country related to figure skating.

During one of the tours with the Stars On Ice troupe's ice show programs in 1999, he became close to the Russian figure skater Ekaterina Gordeeva, who also performed there. After the death of her husband Sergei Grinkov, with whom she skated together, the woman was left with her little daughter to live and work in the States.

In general, Ilya and Katya knew each other for a long time. Since childhood, we have been engaged in figure skating in the same section in Moscow, then we met several times at tournaments when Katerina’s husband was still alive. And it so happened that fate brought them together far from their homeland. Ilya married Ekaterina in 2001. The wedding took place in California, where the skaters lived and currently live.

In winter - to Hawaii

The public very quickly forgets their heroes. Since Ilya Kulik settled in America and stopped appearing at major competitions, our viewers turned their attention to other skaters - Alexei Yagudin and Evgeni Plushenko.

And suddenly, a few years later, news came: Kulik married Katya Gordeeva!
Katya, a very beautiful woman, received the unofficial title “Miss Olympics” at the Olympic Games in Calgary. She performed in pairs with Sergei Grinkov, and this duet in the 80s was considered almost the standard of pair skating. Gordeeva and Grinkov, who later became husband and wife, won the World Championships four times and the Olympic Games twice. And on November 20, 1995, Sergei died of a heart attack. Collapsed on the ice right during training. Katya was left alone with her little daughter in her arms. — Ilya, how did you meet Katya? Was it difficult for you to become a loved one for her after the death of your husband? - Not easy. They met in 1999 on the tour of the “Stars On Ice” troupe, Katya also performed there. During the season we traveled around half of America, about 70 cities. Our team is quite “narrow”, and on the road, you know, people like to talk. So Katya and I got to know each other better and tried to spend all our free time together. And then I realized: this is love. — Weren’t you embarrassed by the fact that you are six years younger than Katya? - No. She always looks good. —Did you write poetry for her? - I composed it. And he sang songs. Why did you ask? — Because at the Nagano Games we met in the Olympic village, and in a few minutes you composed a quatrain for the readers of the magazine. I liked those lines. - Oh, thanks! (Laughs.) I did my best to celebrate. After the victory.

— When did you officially register your marriage with Katya?

— Somewhere in 2000 or 2001.
- Can’t you be more specific? Such moments, in my opinion, are never forgotten. “You see, we didn’t have a grand celebration. We signed during breaks between tours at the Russian consulate in San Francisco. It’s just that Katya is known very well in America, and she is already tired of the increased attention from the press. We generally tried not to advertise our relationship. Okay, I’ll say: we signed in the summer of 2001. - There are two daughters in your family - Dasha and Lisa, they have different fathers. How do the girls get along with each other? — Dasha is 15 years old, Lisa will be six in June, the age difference is decent. Their interests are different, but there are no scandals. My wife and I are teaching our girls to speak Russian at home. Dasha is okay with this, she speaks and writes without errors. And we’ll work with Lisa. — Dashenka, they say, is a good skater. Isn't she going to become a figure skater? “It seems to me that she doesn’t take figure skating too seriously.” I think Dasha will choose a different profession. — Where did you and your wife last vacation? - In Hawaii. An ideal place for a family vacation! In general, given our heavy workload, constant travel, hotels (and Katya, after Lisa’s birth, resumed performing in ice shows), we try to relax several times a year. 7-10 days. In winter, we go to warmer climes - to Hawaii, the Caribbean islands, and Florida. — It seems that you had a house in Los Angeles. Why did you move to another place? — Katya liked it in Los Angeles, we lived there for two years, but there were problems with ice. We couldn't train at a time convenient for us. And the distances on the West Coast of the USA are too long. Long story short, we moved east to Newington, Connecticut. Galina Zmievskaya, a famous coach who trained Olympic champion Oksana Baiul, works at the same skating rink as us. Galina Yakovlevna sometimes helps train Dasha. - Is your house big? - Four bedrooms. We have enough. But this is not completely our house, it is a condominium (a dwelling for two families, but each has a separate entrance. - S.D. ).
Katya’s parents often live with us, and mine come too. It can be a lot of fun. We are happy to see everyone. REFERENCE

*
Ilya KULIK was born on May 23, 1977 in Moscow.* Height 179 cm, weight 75 kg.
* Olympic champion (1998), European champion (1995). * Drives an Audi 4. * Ekaterina GORDEEVA was born on May 28, 1971 in Moscow.

* Two-time Olympic champion (1988, 1994), world champion (1986, 1987, 1989, 1990) and European champion (1988, 1990, 1994) paired with Sergei Grinkov.* Since 1992, lives in the USA.* Drives a BMW "

JUST A FACT

Several years ago, the grave of Sergei Grinkov at the Vagankovskoye cemetery was desecrated by vandals. They sawed off the crystal polyhedron and threw it nearby. Probably someone scared the hooligans. On February 4 this year, Grinkov would have turned 40 years old.

Children come first

A year later, the couple had a daughter, Lisa. Ilya and Katerina are raising two girls. The eldest from her first marriage is Dasha. Katerina was worried that her daughter would not get along with her new husband, but her fears were in vain. Ilya became friends with Dasha and even became her figure skating coach. It is unknown whether the girl will take up skating as professionally as her parents. The main thing is that sport is good for a child.

Having become parents, the skaters began to devote less time to the skating rink; the figure skating of Ilya Kulik and Katerina Gordeeva faded into the background while the younger daughter was growing up. They raised the children themselves, not entrusting this role to a nanny. Parents speak Russian to the girls at home.

Father and mother instilled a love of figure skating in their daughters. In 2007, Katerina and the girls went to the skating rink to celebrate Mother's Day. In the photo, Dasha is 15 years old, Elizaveta is 5, and her mother is 36.

Kulik and Gordeeva monitor their physical fitness, despite being busy with children. It’s simply a shame for skaters not to do this, Ilya and Katerina believe. The man tries not to gain weight and is fond of martial arts. He likes tennis. Children do not allow you to lead a lazy lifestyle.

When the girls were little, the skaters trained in turns and reduced their participation in show programs to a minimum. If it was a tour, then someone went on tour, and someone stayed with their daughters. This explained why Katerina did not perform in pairs with Ilya. For this type of skating you need to devote a lot of time, serious and long-term training.

When the daughters became older, the parents did several joint performances. They performed one of them at the opening of the Pegula Ice Arena at Penn State University as part of the first round of the Family Sauce Family Skating Tribute to Musselman, part of NBC Skating's Oxytrol series. It was November 3, 2013.

Ekaterina Gordeeva, Ilya Kulik: A Tale for Two

Snow was falling over Red Square, and Katya Gordeeva and Ilya Kulik were skating on the ice. For the first time, the two of them flew together to demonstrate in the capital. Katya has already performed in Russian shows, but Ilya’s professional life for almost ten years, from the very moment he left amateur sports in 1998, took place exclusively in other countries. The skaters came to the rehearsal straight from the airport - they wanted to quickly try out the ice. They looked tired, which is no wonder after such a long flight and Moscow traffic jams. But even this did not prevent us from feeling some extraordinary aura of mutual warmth, love and care, which was evident in every movement, every glance of Katya and Ilya at each other. This is probably what absolute happiness should look like.

1997 SAN JOSE

Two years after Gordeeva’s partner and husband Sergei Grinkov passed away, Katya and I met in America. She competed as a singles skater in professional tournaments hosted by two-time Olympic champion Dick Button, raised her daughter Dasha, published the book “My Sergei” and was considered the country’s favorite. It is unlikely that at that time there could have been at least one person in the United States who did not know who Gordeeva was and would not show sincere sympathy for her fate. And yet some kind of internal breakdown was constantly felt in her.

Figure skating became for Katya not so much a pleasure as a way to survive: she simply couldn’t do anything else that would pay so well. And she essentially had no other life: performances, interviews, travel, more performances, more interviews with the constant desire of journalists to stir up emotional wounds...

Then, having returned from San Jose to Moscow, I did a large magazine article about Gordeeva, which ended with the words: “In America they love beautiful fairy tales invented by the Americans themselves. According to the laws of this genre, somewhere in the near future, a fairy-tale prince would definitely appear next to Katya, who would take her hand and lead her off the ice into a completely different, femininely happy future. Only there are far fewer princes there than lonely skaters.”

1997 MARLBOROUGH

A handsome prince named Ilya Kulik was training at this time in the small American village of Marlborough under the leadership of Tatyana Tarasova and was preparing for his first Olympic Games. The previous season turned out to be one of the most unsuccessful for the skater. In 1995 he became European champion. A year later he won silver at the world championships in Edmonton. And in 1997 he lost everything. Then he seriously injured his leg when he pierced his boot with a skate blade during training. Some time later he suffered a back injury. Several pre-Olympic months turned into continuous overcoming for the sole purpose of winning in Nagano.

After the victory was won, Kulik abruptly cut off all ties that kept him in the sport: he broke up with Tarasova and refused to go to the World Championships. That’s how, at the age of 20, at the very height of his amateur career, his amateur career was irrevocably ended.

The inexplicability of his actions involuntarily painted a not the most attractive portrait of the young champion. Harsh, selfish, irreconcilable towards others, unbearable in communication, proud and narcissistic beyond measure. However, for Russian fans all this quickly faded into the background. A new star appeared in amateur figure skating - Alexey Yagudin; news of professional sports rarely reached Russia.

But it was then that Kulik met Gordeeva at Stars on Ice. In a completely incomprehensible and unfamiliar world, pro Katya became for Ilya the very friend that he, perhaps, lacked at that moment more than anything in the world.

2007 MOSCOW

— Over these more than nine years, I have never had the feeling that I was in a hurry to leave amateur sports...

Ilya Kulik, matured, but just as impetuous in his movements as he was in the year of his Olympic victory, sat next to Katya in the cozy room of the Bosco Bar on Red Square, immersed in memories.

— I probably could have continued skating, after all, I was only 20. It wasn’t a matter of age, but of motivation. Physically, I still feel pretty good. And then I asked myself the question: what is the point of continuing if what you are doing has ceased to bring pleasure?

In 1998, many other factors were layered. Mentally, I was completely exhausted: in order to win the Olympic Games, we had worked too hard and too much. Plus - injuries. I really love skating, I always loved performing, but then, perhaps, I just burned out. Burnt out from the inside. And it seemed to me that professional figure skating was exactly the world in which I could continue to develop further.

— I remember how hard it was for you to take part in the Olympics. It was worth it?

- Of course it was worth it. This is a kind of life test for any athlete. An opportunity that, perhaps, is given only once in a lifetime and which cannot be exchanged for anything. I am very glad that I passed this test. Deep down I am very proud of myself. The games in Nagano became for me much more a test of life stability than a sporting competition.

- What happened then?

— A very difficult year. I did 75 appearances on Champions on Ice with Tom Collins. His tour lasted almost until the fall, and in the winter I began performing at Stars on Ice and made another 65 performances. It was terribly difficult to find ourselves in this cauldron, not knowing the specifics of professional sports. After all, I only had a stock of equipment accumulated over the years of performing as an amateur.

- What was this specificity?

— The fact is that you need to perform every day. In different cities, on different ice. Constant moving. Here you are tired, there you haven’t recovered, there you haven’t gotten enough sleep, there you haven’t completed your training. And when all this accumulates, it becomes very difficult. All this - practically without training, because when the tour begins, there is nowhere and no time to train. This is the specificity of professionalism: performing not when you are ready for it, but when necessary. It’s quite difficult to live in this mode.

— You had the opportunity to compete three times in the world championships among professionals. Was it part of the job, indistinguishable from the show, or some kind of sporting challenge?

“I couldn’t understand it myself at first.” Kurt Browning and Brian Boitano, who each had two relatively simple triple jumps in their program, were on the ice with me, but I did two triple Axels, the rest of the set of triples, and lost. It was a kind of shock, but I was aware that I had come to the wrong place. It was necessary to look for style, music, costumes. It was strange to get used to this, but also interesting.

YEAR 2001. WASHINGTON

At one time, Gordeeva mastered the specifics of Stars on Ice just as painfully. Just like Kulik, she recalled a state of constant shock because after amateur sports it is completely impossible to understand what is required of you. That jumping and spinning is not enough. That you have to go on the ice up to six times in one performance. That you can't even get sick in Stars on Ice. And if you get sick, you still have to go on the ice. Because you can only skip solo numbers. Failure to perform in groups means letting down the entire troupe.

“Of course, everyone gets sick,” she said. — Over the course of three to four months on tour, each skater on average experiences one or two serious illnesses that they have to endure on their feet. With antibiotics, fever, sore throat, bronchitis and so on. Usually, if one person gets sick, then after a few days he coughs and sneezes for the entire tour...

At Stars on Ice, Kulik and Gordeeva began skating together, in a special doubles number choreographed for them by the troupe's choreographer Sandra Bezik. Gradually, sympathy grew into deeper feelings. There were rumors among the skaters that his love for Katya made Kulik’s life in the team very difficult. They said that the co-owner of the show, Olympic champion Scott Hamilton, openly sympathized with the figure skater ever since she skated with Grinkov, and Kulika took his feelings for her as a personal insult. Rather, it was not so. It’s just that the very attitude towards Gordeeva on the part of many people in America, after Sergei died, became too possessive. As soon as a man appeared next to the figure skater, general jealousy flared up.

It was impossible to talk about this with Kulik. In 2001, when Katya was expecting Ilya’s child and even moved to California with him, where the skater had his own house, they had a serious quarrel. Perhaps this shouldn't have been surprising either. Despite all the external insecurity and fragility of Gordeeva, she always had the same steely character as Kulik. Olympic champions are rarely different. No wonder sparks flew.

That year, Ilya managed to win the professional world championship for the first time. It is paradoxical that, despite all the specifics of this event, which he liked to talk about in previous years, in Washington - the permanent site of professional championships - he won with his Olympic "Rhapsody in Blue", performing it almost as brilliantly as in Nagano. But when, after the competition, I hinted at saying hello to Katya, Kulik snapped: “Not through me!”

A few months later, she and Katya got married.

2003 SAINT PETERSBURG

Sometimes it is enough to hear a woman say her husband's name to understand whether she is happy. Katino “Ilyusha” remained in my ears for a long time after we met in St. Petersburg in 2003, where Gordeeva came to perform in Arthur Dmitriev’s show. She talked about how Ilya, in addition to her own performances, does a lot of ice training with Dasha, is already putting her youngest, Lisa, on skates, trains, performs, helps around the house, and quite sincerely suddenly admitted: “I’m very glad that life has turned out this way.” way. A large and friendly family is happiness that many are deprived of. Although sometimes I think that it would be better if the age difference between Dasha and Lisa was not so great. On the one hand, this is good - Dasha helps me a lot with my youngest daughter. On the other hand, I would like Lisa to have a brother or sister close to her age. I wish I knew for sure that the third would be a boy.”

2007 MOSCOW

Now it seems to me that Kulik was always much more mature than those around him perceived. For the first time, this thought was prompted by his words, unexpectedly spoken in 1997. He lived permanently in Marlborough, trained to the point of oblivion, but off the ice he sometimes behaved like a capricious child. One day, when we were going to the skating rink together, I even tried to reprimand the impudent young man for his behavior towards Tarasova. And suddenly I heard:

“Don’t you understand that I can cook food and wash everything myself?” But Tatyana likes to feel like she is in complete control of my whole life. She needs this, not me. So I just play by the rules. According to her rules. And in general it has nothing to do with work.

Actually, the decision to leave amateur sports after the 1998 Games was also the act of an adult. It’s not so easy to take a step at the age of 20, the consequences of which you don’t have to regret later.

During our meeting in Moscow, Ilya said:

“I can’t say that I think about figure skating all the time now—life has changed. If possible, I try to spend time with my family. Lisa trains, we take her to the skating rink, and such a life in itself excludes the possibility of serious training and preparation for serious performances. Just as it was in its time. Katya and I dictate our tour schedule ourselves. For the New Year we refuse any proposals because we want to be together. I'm not afraid of being left without work. Maybe there will be fewer offers, maybe they will start paying less for performances, but figure skating is quite popular in the world and we are still receiving more offers than we can implement.

In part, these plans are always unpredictable: something breaks down in one place and simultaneously arises in another. Last year and this year, Katya and I were lucky: we performed together at Stars on Ice - we were invited to 20 shows. We can’t go on the whole tour because we have children. Taking three months away from your family is still too much. Naturally, producers are not very happy when people come to several performances. But here, as a rule, Katya and I are met halfway.

Participation in the show is, of course, the main source of our income. In the summer I usually go to Switzerland to conduct coaching seminars, and I always take my family with me. And at home, if I’m free, I train everyone who asks. But this work is sporadic. So far this is the only format I can afford. It is impossible to combine both your own training and classes with students in one day. I first realized this last winter. Before this, I didn’t even have to think about it - the base was so large that I didn’t even think about any special work. I skated without a quadruple jump, but I did the triple axel without any problems. Difficult jumps are always welcome in the show, but quadruple jumps are too risky: there is no warm-up or proper lighting. And last winter I was “pressed” because in the summer I trained more than I trained. When winter came and performances began, I noticed that jumping began to cause me some inconvenience. It throws in one direction, then in the other - I had to strain.

I began to approach such things differently. I realized that you should never agree to this or that show if you are not ready to perform. Showing poor performance in our profession is not recommended in principle, but for me the most important thing is to prepare the body for work in such a way as to withstand all the stress. Because otherwise the risk of injury immediately increases. When you go out on the ice, you no longer have insurance. In the excitement you can go too far, and if you are not ready for these stresses, most likely things will really end badly. This means that all subsequent work will be at risk.

JAPAN AND BEYOND

The day after the performance in Moscow, Kulik flew to Japan. To the country where he fell in love with performing back in 1998. When asked when to expect him and Katya back to Russia, he shrugged:

“We’re not thinking far ahead.” Now Dasha has just started studying at High School; the teaching methods in Russia and the USA are so different that it is unrealistic for children to study in Moscow. There is more work in Russia and that makes me happy. We used to always come here on vacation and bring our children. I was even offered to participate in television projects, but they are too long. In addition, I am a single skater and do not have enough experience in pair skating to count on success in these projects. When we did a doubles routine with Katya in Stars on Ice, it took three months for me to learn something. But she is a professional. I can’t even imagine how you can skate with a person who has never skated.

- And yet, what will happen next? Is big sport really not tempting to return to it in any other capacity?

— I have enough adrenaline even without sports. It's enough to see a full hall. It has never happened before that I went on the ice without nervousness. For the first three years after the Nagano Games, I didn’t watch amateur competitions at all - I wasn’t interested. Although now I'm starting to like it. The new system gives the skater much more opportunities than it was when I competed. This system encourages people to make mistakes. You can do everything on the ice, but put on the wrong program and lose tactically. Achieve maximum difficulty in tracks and rotations, but do not do jumps. This, it seems to me, is very interesting for a coach.

— Katya believes that you could become a very talented coach.

— Coaching work really attracts me more than any other. Vitya Petrenko, with whose family we communicate very closely in the USA, periodically comes to competitions as a controller, and he really likes it. And I want to be on the other side. Where the athletes and coaches are. I don’t want to be on the same side of the barricades with the judges.

- So maybe it still makes sense to take one of the students and try to bring them to a serious result?

— So far this does not fit into the framework of our family budget.

2007 https://www.velena.ru

Ilya Kulik now

Perhaps this is all that could be said about the career of the Olympic champion. Currently, Ilya Aleksandrovich Kulik is 41 years old. He goes on the ice 3-4 times a week. He trains for an hour to keep his body in good shape.

Since 2020, he and his wife have been working on the Romeo and Juliet ice show. The public saw it in 2020. In the same year, Ilya and Katerina were in Moscow at the anniversary in honor of the 70th anniversary of the honored coach Tatyana Anatolyevna Tarasova, where they performed a joint number. Ilya continues to coach at the established figure skating school.

Evgeny Kulik today

In 2020, Evgeniy made his debut as an actor. He was offered to play one of the key roles in the comedy series “Island”, produced by the TNT channel. The young man appeared in the role of a shy and reserved guy Lesha, who went to the island to radically change his life and finally become a real man.

Evgeny Kulik starred in the TV series “Island”

The plot of the series is that a group of brave people goes to the island to film a reality show. But at some point, all participants realize that the yacht with the entire film crew exploded and they were left completely alone on a large uninhabited piece of land. Viewers of the series will be able to see whether completely unfamiliar people with different personalities will be able to survive and what they will have to go through to do this. In the series, the roles are played by Yanina Studilina, Denis Kosyakov, Irina Vilkova, Kirill Melekhov, Anastasia Aseeva, Anfisa Wistinghausen, Grigory Kalinin, Roman Khan and Olesya Zhurakovskaya. TV series “Island” - trailer Evgeniy himself admits that he really liked the new role, and also received great pleasure from the entire filming process. He would gladly play not only a comedic, but also a dramatic role in some feature film. Watching the first episode, Evgeniy shared with journalists that he did not get the expected pleasure from the final version, but admitted that the next episodes are becoming more and more interesting.

In 2020, the comedy “Classmates” will be released, in which Evgeniy Kulik will play a small role. The main roles will be played by Svetlana Khodchenkova, Ekaterina Vilkova, Valentina Mazunina, Olga Kuzmina, Ararat Keshchyan, Roman Yunusov and Ilya Lyubimov. The creators of the series “The Island” also announced that the second part will be released in the new season.