Elena Viktorovna Berezhnaya is a Russian former pair skater. With partner Anton Sikharulidze, she is the 1998 and 1999 World champion, 1998 Olympic silver medalist and 2002 Olympic champion.
Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze compete in 2001
Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze meet Vladimir Putin in March 2002
Image: Elena Bereznaya
Pair skating is a figure skating discipline defined by the International Skating Union (ISU) as "the skating of two persons in unison who perform their movements in such harmony with each other as to give the impression of genuine Pair Skating as compared with independent Single Skating". The ISU also states that a pairs team consists of "one Woman and one Man". Pair skating, along with men's and women's single skating, has been an Olympic discipline since figure skating, the oldest Winter Olympic sport, was introduced at the 1908 Summer Olympics in London. The ISU World Figure Skating Championships introduced pair skating in 1908.
German pair skaters Anna Hübler and Heinrich Burger, 1908 Olympics
German pair team Madge Syers and Edgar Syers at the 1908 Olympics
Liudmila Belousova and Oleg Protopopov (the "Protopopovs"), in 1968
Irina Rodnina and Alexei Ulanov, in 1972