Ludmila Belousova and Oleg Protopopov (SU) - World Championships Prague 1962 - ISU Archives

To license ISU footage: https://bit.ly/3M7bcaF We dusted off the skating archive to show you some of our sports greatest legends. SUBSCRIBE to our channel! LIKE us on Facebook:   / isufigureskating   FOLLOW us on Twitter: Figure Skating Branch -   / isu_figure   For daily pictures follow us on Instagram:   / isufigureskating   For news, calendar, results and skater information/bios visit our website at: http://www.isu.org Legend & Present: The husband and wife pair of Ludmila Belousova and Oleg Protopopov entered the International Figure Skating scene at the 1958 European Championships in Bratislava. They placed 10th there, and the same year they finished in 13th place at the World Championships in Paris. Year by year both their placement and performance rapidly changed for the better. As the years passed the artistic impression, for which they both have had excellent biological and mental predispositions, improved in particular. Their appearance was an artistic combination of poetic motion and accomplished expression of music. At their time, there were no Pair Skaters showing such a level of harmony, grace, and artistic impression as Loudmila and Oleg. Every motion of their skating was coming from inside, and was not performed by legs, but by their heart. They took part in 11 European Championships, the 1958 Championships in Bratislava being the first and 1969 Championships in Garmisch-Partenkirchen being the last. In 1961, European Championships were the only ones they did not take part in, because the Soviet Figure Skaters were forbidden to compete in West-Berlin by Soviet authorities. The Pair stood on the European victory rostrum 8 times from a total of eleven competitions. Belousova and Protopopov took part in a total of 10 World Championships. The first one in 1958 and the last one in 1969. In 1959 the Soviet Figure Skaters were not allowed to take part in the World Championships in Colorado Springs. They reached the World victory rostrum 8 times. They took part in 3 Olympic competitions: They placed 9th in 1960 at Squaw Valley, in 1964 they beat their greatest rivals Kilius and Baulmer and won the Olympic Gold in Innsbruck. They confidently repeated their victory at the 1968 winter Olympiad in Grenoble. After finishing their career in their mid-30s the Prototopovs, as they called themselves, became members of the Leningrad Ice Show. in 1979, they left the Soviet Union for Switzerland and settled in the small city of Grindelwald. In the years from 1981 to 1987, they won 6 professional World Championships. By the end of 1994, the citizens of Grindelwald anonymously carried a motion of the Swiss citizenship for Belousova and Protopopov. From a historical aspect, Herbert and Bayer directed the development of the Pairs category in the years 1935 to 1939, Belousova and Protopov were their logical but more sophisticated successors. One is convinced that this pair has set standards of artistic impressions which shall serve as a pattern also in the future. The Pair have continued to perform ever since and, a little over 50 years after they put Soviet figure skating on the map, they were on hand at Sochi’s Iceberg Arena to see their Russian heirs Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov skate to Olympic gold in 2014.