January 1996
From Blades on Ice:
TRIBUTE
by Steve Woodward
The sorrow we will always feel in contemplation of the tragic death of Sergei Grinkov has almost nothing to do with ice skating. The legacy of Gordeeva and Grinkov in the sport was secured long ago. They will be standard bearers for many generations to come. What hurts so deeply, and won't go away, is that two people so in love have been separated. At least for now. It was not necessary to know this couple on a personal level to understand the love that bonded them so completely. It was evident by the way each glowed in the presence of the other, by the pleasure they derived from just being together, and by the joy they exuded when conversation turned to daughter Daria.
I have no doubt that Sergei and Katya could have - and, eventually, would have walked away from the demands of professional skating without a moment of apprehension. They would still have had each other. They would still have had their marriage. With Daria, they would still be a family. They didn't need our applause to feel good about the life they were experiencing together.
More rare than the ease with which they moved across a sheet of ice was the happiness they showered on friends and fellow skaters. Who can recall any mention of Sergei and Katya that was not uplifting, reassuring, positive? They were loved and cherished as people more than admired as athletes. The memories that so surprisingly came back upon learning of Sergei's death are not only vivid but incredibly uncomplicated.
I remember so well seeing Sergei and Katya for the first time in 1988, just a few days before the Calgary Winter Games began in western Canada. They were then members of the Soviet Union's Olympic team. The entire Soviet team had traveled to Canada considerably ahead of the start of the Games, to live and train in a small community outside of Calgary. Sergei and Katya were rehearsing elements off ice the evening I visited. I can still see him, young, powerful and athletic, lifting her so easily above his head. She was then just a child. I encountered them again in 1993, after the original Skates of Gold event in Boston. We sat down in comfortable chairs at the hotel on a Sunday morning to talk about the upcoming 1994 Olympics. They were such a stunning couple. Katya, fluent in English, was spokesperson. Sergei sat quietly, listening and smiling, so proud of his wife and skating partner.
By coincidence, I captured a candid glimpse of them again right after they won their second Olympic title in Norwav. It was the morning after at the athletes' village, on a sunny, bitterly cold day. There, by the entrance, was Katya, her head wrapped in a scarf talking on a cellular telephone. And next to her, Sergei, in a long, dark overcoat, looking like some kind of mild-mannered bodyguard.
In the fall of 1994, they were in Cincinnati for Skates of Gold II. As always, it was just a simple moment that registered a permanent place in my memory. Standing in front of the hotel, I saw them walking out to take a stroll. They were holding hands as they disappeared down the street. 'How lucky they are,' I thought.
A night or two later at Riverfront Coliseum, Sergei and Katya were performing for an adoring audience. I was watching from the edge of the ice. As the crowd began to applaud, I was startled to find Brian Boitano standing right next to me. He, too, had been captivated by their incredible symmetry, and commented to no one particular how their skating made him cry. With Sergei and Katya, the tears just flowed. There was nothing contrived about the emotions they stirred. In December of 1994, I encountered them once again. This time, at the hotel near Landover, Maryland. They were eating in the lobby restaurant, something they had done who knows how many times before, in countless hotels. But, somehow, Sergei and Katya looked like a couple on a first date. He gazed into her eyes. She gazed back, happily occupied by quiet conversation.When they were together, the world seemed to go on without them.
Perhaps, someday, it will again.
the G&G corner - Copyright © Su-jan Yip, September 1996 - 2007