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| U.S. pairs figure skaters Tiffany Scott and Philip Dulebohn perform during the Olympic send-off exhibition held Jan. 26 at the Fred Rust Ice Arena.
Photograph by Eric Crossan
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Six figure skating couples from the University of Delaware, including American pairs skaters Tiffany Scott and Philip Dulebohn, are preparing for competition in the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics.
In addition to Scott and Dulebohn, UD will be represented at Salt Lake by five ice dance teams that train on campus. Those are Ilia Averbukh and Irina Lobacheva, who hold the 2001 World Championships Bronze Medal and will be representing Russia; Ruslan Goncharov and Elena Grushina, who will be representing the Ukraine; Daniel and Eliane Hugentobler, who will be representing Switzerland; Natalia Gudina and Alexei Beletski, who will be representing Israel; and Tae-hwa Yang and Chuen-gun Lee, who will be representing Korea.
The Olympics opening ceremonies will be held Friday, Feb. 8, and Scott and Dulebohn will take to the ice for the pairs short program the following evening in the Salt Lake Ice Center. The pairs free program will be held Monday, Feb. 11.
Ice dance compulsories will be held Feb. 15, with original dance Feb. 17 and free dance Feb. 18.
Americans Scott and Dulebohn have managed to triumph in a tumultuous year. Sidelined for months by a stress fracture Dulebohn incurred this past summer, they were forced to withdraw from various competitions last fall. Only by placing second in the U.S. Figure Skating Association championship pairs competition in January 2002 were Scott and Dulebohn assured a place on the U.S. Olympic team.
Scott, a Hanson, Mass., native, is a junior at the University of Delaware, where she is majoring in nutrition in the College of Health and Nursing Sciences. Dulebohn, originally from Germantown, Md., calls the University of Delaware Figure Skating Club home.
The pair is coached by Karl Kurtz, a former U.S. novice national champion, international pairs champion and U.S. junior pairs silver medalist from Hershey, Pa., who currently lives in Wilmington.
Ilia Averbukh and Irina Lobacheva, both 28 years old, are from Moscow, Russia. They are two-time ice dance bronze medalists at the European Championships (2001 and 2002), as well as 2001 bronze medalists at the World Championships and four-time Russian national champions. Their programs for the Olympic competition include a Spanish original dance and a Klavesin free dance.
Ruslan Goncharov, 29, and Elena Grushina, 27, both from Odessa, Ukraine, are four-time Ukrainian national ice dancing champions, who placed eighth at the 2002 World Championships. They will perform a Spanish original dance and a free dance to “Barcelona” for Olympic competition.
Daniel and Eliane Hugentobler are a brother and sister ice dancing team from Switzerland. Born in Zurich, Eliane, 20, and Daniel, 24, were first paired on the ice as children. They finished in ninth place at the 2002 European Figure Skating Championships and are five-time Swiss national champions. Their Olympic routines will include a Spanish original dance and a free dance to Gloria Gaynor’s disco hit “I Will Survive.”
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| Natalia Gudina and Alexei Beletski, who train at the University of Delaware, will represent Israel in the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics.
Photograph by Eric Crossan
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Natalia Gudina and Alexei Beletski originally hail from Odessa, Ukraine, but will be representing Israel in the ice dance competition at the 2002 Winter Olympics. Gudina, 24, and Beletski, 23, will do an original Spanish dance and a free dance to traditional Greek music.
Tae-hwa Yang, 19, and her partner, Chuen-gun Lee, 22, come from Seoul, Korea. They are three-time Korean national champions and were selected for the Korean world championship teams in 2001 and again this year. They will perform an original Spanish dance and a free dance with the jungle as its theme.
All five international teams are coached by former Olympian Natalya Linitchouk and Guennadi Karponossov. Both Linitchouk and Karponossov are national, international, world and Olympic coaches. Linitchouk specializes in choreography for the ice dancing teams.
Jan. 29, 2002
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