Sergei Vladilenovich Ponomarenko (; born October 6, 1960) is a Russian former competitive

ice dancer Ice dance (sometimes referred to as ice dancing) is a discipline of figure skating that historically draws from ballroom dancing. It joined the World Figure Skating Championships in 1952, and became a Winter Olympic Games medal sport in 1976. A ...

who competed for the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

and the Unified team. With skating partner and wife

Marina Klimova Marina Vladimirovna Klimova (; born 28 June 1966) is a former competitive ice dancer who competed for the Soviet Union and the Unified Team. With skating partner and husband Sergei Ponomarenko, she is the 1992 Olympic champion, the 1988 ...

, he is the 1992 Olympic champion, 1988 Olympic silver medalist, 1984 Olympic bronze medalist, three-time World champion, and four-time European champion.

Career

Ponomarenko trained at Spartak in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

. Early in his career, he competed with Tatiana Durasova, becoming the 1978 and 1979 World Junior champion. Following their split, he teamed up with

. Klimova and Ponomarenko were fourth in their European Championships debut in 1983. Their breakthrough came the following season when they won the bronze medal at the

1984 Winter Olympics The 1984 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XIV Olympic Winter Games (Serbo-Croatian language, Serbo-Croatian and Slovene language, Slovene: ; Serbian Cyrillic alphabet, Serbian Cyrillic: ; ) and commonly known as Sarajevo '84 (Serbian Cy ...

and 1984 European Championships. In 1985, they won their first

World The world is the totality of entities, the whole of reality, or everything that Existence, exists. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the world as unique, while others talk ...

medal, silver. They were four-time consecutive World silver medalists from 1985 to 1988. In 1988, they also won the

Olympic silver medal An Olympic medal is awarded to successful competitors at one of the Olympic Games. There are three classes of medal to be won: gold, silver, and bronze, awarded to first, second, and third place, respectively. The granting of awards is laid ou ...

, behind

Natalia Bestemianova Natalia Filimonovna Bestemianova or Bestemyanova (, born 6 January 1960) is a Soviet and Russian former competitive ice dancer who competed for the Soviet Union. With her partner Andrei Bukin, she is the 1988 Winter Olympics, 1988 Olympic Champio ...

and

Andrei Bukin Andrei Anatolyevich Bukin (, born 10 June 1957) is a Soviet and Russian former ice dancer who represented the Soviet Union in his competitive career. With his partner Natalia Bestemianova, he is the 1988 Olympic Champion, 1984 Olympic silver me ...

. In

1989 1989 was a turning point in political history with the "Revolutions of 1989" which ended communism in Eastern Bloc of Europe, starting in Poland and Hungary, with experiments in power-sharing coming to a head with the opening of the Berlin W ...

, Klimova and Ponomarenko won the first of their four consecutive European titles. They also won the 1989 World Championships and narrowly won another World gold in

1990 Important events of 1990 include the Reunification of Germany and the unification of Yemen, the formal beginning of the Human Genome Project (finished in 2003), the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, the separation of Namibia from South ...

on the strength of their compulsories and their

original dance The original dance (OD) was one of the programs performed by figure skaters in ice dance competitions, in which the ice dancers skated "a dance of their own creation to dance music they have selected for the designated rhythm(s)".Rulebook, p. 90 ...

, even though they lost the

free dance Free dance is a 20th-century dance form that preceded modern dance. Rebelling against the rigid constraints of classical ballet, Loie Fuller, Isadora Duncan and Ruth St. Denis (with her work in theater) developed their own styles of free dance a ...

to Isabelle Duchesnay and Paul Duchesnay from France. In

1991 It was the final year of the Cold War, which had begun in 1947. During the year, the Soviet Union Dissolution of the Soviet Union, collapsed, leaving Post-soviet states, fifteen sovereign republics and the Commonwealth of Independent State ...

, their free dance was choreographed to music from the film ''Lawrence of Arabia''; figure skating writer Ellyn Kestnbaum states that the program "escapes gendering by representing different elements of nature", with Ponomarenko, who wore a brown unitard, representing the sands of the desert and Klimova representing the wind. Kestnbaum states that their free dance "replicates classical gender positions". Kestnbaum also states their the relationship Klimova and Ponomarenko present "is not gendered stereotypically, but it is figured as difference, as opposing elements".Kestnbaum, p. 235 Four months before the Olympics, they decided to leave coach Natalia Dubova. They re-established themselves as the top ice dancers in the world by winning another 1992 European title and then capturing the 1992 Olympic title. He became one of the oldest figure skating Olympic champions. They ended their season with their third World title. They retired from eligible skating after the World Championships and turned to professional and show skating. Their free skate program at the 1992 Winter Olympics, entitled "A Man and a Woman: From the Mundane to the Sublime," "returned to the images of difference and woman as other".Kestnbaum, p. 238 Ponomarenko and Klimova's costumes were both black and gray: he wore a loose shirt and trousers, with a sash around his waist, while she wore a black unitard with gray chiffon-like webbings or wings between her arms and legs and a spiderweb across her chest, and wore her red curly hair loose over her shoulders. Kestnbaum called their program "a highly eroticized duet to music by J.S. Bach". Kestnbaum also reported that the program displayed Ponomarenko's strength and Kimova's beauty and flexibility, stating that their movements, spider imagery, and costumes depicted that "the man is normative and the woman an exotic danger". In addition to winning three

World championships A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game ...

and four

European Championships A European Championship is the top level international sports competition between European athletes or sports teams representing their respective countries or professional sports clubs. In the plural, the European Championships also refers t ...

, Klimova and Ponomarenko are the first figure skaters in any discipline to have won Olympic medals in three different colors. They won the bronze medal in 1984 Sarajevo, the silver medal in 1988 Calgary for the

and the gold medal in 1992 Albertville for the Unified Team. Klimova and Ponomarenko were inducted into the

World Figure Skating Hall of Fame The World Figure Skating Hall of Fame serves as a repository for the sport of figure skating. The World Figure Skating Hall of Fame is where the greatest names in the history of the sport are honored. It is located at the Broadmoor Resort in Co ...

in 2000. Ponomarenko is an ISU technical specialist for Russia. He and his wife coach young figure skaters at Sharks Ice at San Jose,

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. They were known as "traditionalists with a light elegant touch" and for excelling both technically and artistically.

Personal life

Klimova and Ponomarenko married in September 1984. They now reside in the United States in

Morgan Hill, California Morgan Hill is a city in Santa Clara County, California, at the southern tip of Silicon Valley in the San Francisco Bay Area. Morgan Hill is an affluent residential community, the seat of several high-tech companies, and a dining and recreation ...

. They have two sons, Tim Ponomarenko, born in 1998, and

Anthony Ponomarenko Anthony Ponomarenko (born January 5, 2001) is an American ice dancer. With his skating partner, Christina Carreira, he is a two-time Four Continents bronze medalist (2022, 2024), the 2018 Rostelecom Cup bronze medalist, three-time ISU Grand Prix ...

, born on January 5, 2001, in

San Jose, California San Jose, officially the City of San José ( ; ), is a cultural, commercial, and political center within Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area. With a city population of 997,368 and a metropolitan area population of 1.95 million, it is ...

. Anthony is a competitive ice dancer for the United States.

Programs

(With Klimova)

Results

With Klimova

Professional career

With Durasova

References

External links

1991 Worlds free dance
(YouTube clip)
1992 Olympics free dance
(YouTube clip)

Navigation

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ponomarenko, Sergei 1960 births Living people Russian male ice dancers Soviet male ice dancers International Skating Union technical specialists Figure skaters at the 1984 Winter Olympics Figure skaters at the 1988 Winter Olympics Figure skaters at the 1992 Winter Olympics Olympic figure skaters for the Soviet Union Olympic figure skaters for the Unified Team Olympic gold medalists for the Unified Team Olympic silver medalists for the Soviet Union Olympic bronze medalists for the Soviet Union Spartak (sports society) sportspeople Sportspeople from Karaganda Region Figure skaters from Moscow Figure skaters from San Jose, California Olympic medalists in figure skating World Figure Skating Championships medalists European Figure Skating Championships medalists World Junior Figure Skating Championships medalists Medalists at the 1984 Winter Olympics Medalists at the 1988 Winter Olympics Medalists at the 1992 Winter Olympics Goodwill Games medalists in figure skating Competitors at the 1990 Goodwill Games 20th-century Russian sportsmen