Jews at the Winter Olympics

[Fiona]

Since the 1932 Winter Olympics when Irving Jaffee of the US won gold medals in the 5,000-meter and 10,000m speed skating events at Lake Placid, New York, Jews have become increasingly active in winter sports.

In more recent Games, figure skating has been where Jews have made a bigger impact and that will hold true in Turin, as well.

Leading the pack is Russia's Irina Slutskaya, the reigning world champion and a silver medalist at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

Slutskaya has had her share of ups and downs in a distinguished career that has seen her rise to No. 1 in the world rankings in 2002 but then missing the world championships in 2003 due her mother's illness and suffering from vasculitis which caused her to miss almost the entire 2003/04 season.

Slutskaya, who visits an aging grandmother in Netanya in the offseason, is noted as the inventor of the double-Biellmann spin with foot change, a skating movement that requires tremendous flexibility.

Hot on Slutskaya's skates will be Sasha Cohen, world runner-up two years running and a fourth-place finisher at Salt Lake City.

A bridesmaid at the US championships for the last four years, she will likely be the American's best chance of winning three straight golds in the event's history.

Emily Hughes, younger sister of the surprising gold medalist at Salt Lake City, Sarah Hughes, managed a third-place finish at the US Olympic trials, which under normal circumstances would have guaranteed her a ticket to Turin. However, she was bumped down to first alternate when Michelle Kwan, a five-time world champion and bronze medalist in 2002, was deemed fit to compete by a panel of judges. Kwan did not compete in any events this season due to injury.
Sarah is not competing.

Oksana Baiul, who competed for Ukraine and won an Olympic gold at age 16 in Lillehammer, Norway, in 1994, was unaware of her Jewish roots until 2003, when she was reunited with her Jewish father and grandmother.

When her parents divorced at an early age, she lived with her mother. When she was 13 years old, her mother died and Baiul thought she had been orphaned.

The only male figure skater of note is Dr. Alain Calmat, who won an Olympic silver medal in 1964, and became France's minister of Youth and Sports in 1984.

Michael Shmerkin put Israel on the ice skating map by being the first Israeli to compete in a Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, finishing 16th. He also competed at the 1998 Nagano Games, where he came in 18th.

Along with the figure skating individuals, there are a number of successful ice dance duos where one of the partners has a Jewish background.

The most notable to date is Gennadi Karponosov who with partner Natalya Linichuk were world champions in 1978-79, and won Olympic gold in 1980. As a married couple, they went on to coach such skating greats as Baiul and Oksana Grischuk and Evgeny Platov, who went on to be the only tandem to win successive Olympic gold medals. Platov is currently coaching Galit Chait and Sergei Sakhnovsky, as well as Alexandra and Roman Zaretsky, all of Israel.

However, ice dance success goes back much further, as Emilie Rotter and partner Laszlo Szollas of Hungary won Olympic bronzes in both 1932 and 1936.

Judy Blumberg of the US and her partner had a fourth-place showing at the 1984 Games, and also won bronze medals at the 1983-5 world championships.

A more recent Olympic ice dance success saw the married team of Ilia Averbukh and Irina Lobacheva of Russia capture the silver medal at Salt Lake City in 2002. Natalia Gudina and Alexei Beletsky competed for Israel in 2002.

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