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⛸️Soviet Union / Russia

Russia · Training centers in Moscow and St. Petersburg

Major honours

1964-2006Olympic pairs gold monopoly
3, across 2 partnershipsIrina Rodnina's Olympic golds
10Rodnina's consecutive world titles
2014-2022Consecutive women's Olympic titles

The Soviet Union and the Russia that succeeded it built a dominance in pairs and ice dance that no other country has approached. From 1964 to 2006 they took every single Olympic pairs gold medal, an unmatched monopoly for that length of time in any Olympic event. Irina Rodnina won three Olympic golds with two different partners and ten straight world titles, while in ice dance Pakhomova and Gorshkov took the first Olympic title in 1976 and Soviet-Russian couples returned to the top repeatedly into the 1990s. Evgeni Plushenko left a men's singles gold in 2006 and Olympic medals across four straight Games, then added team gold at the Sochi 2014 Olympics. From 2014 to 2022, teenagers coached by Eteri Tutberidze won three consecutive Olympic women's titles, but the 2022 Kamila Valieva doping case, resolved by a 2024 Court of Arbitration for Sport ruling, cost Russia the team gold, which went to the United States. Russian skaters have been excluded from international competition since February 2022.

Record comparison

Olympic golds
22+
Olympic medals
45+
World titles
60+
World champions produced
20+

Bars are scaled to the strongest team in this list.

Club legends

Irina RodninaEvgeni PlushenkoKamila ValievaLyudmila Pakhomova

Rivalry

The rivalry with the United States has been an iconic Cold War-era contest, and since 2022 exclusion from international competition has itself become the single largest factor defining the country's relationship with every other federation.

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