Belousova & Protopopov performance at ages 79 and 83
- Thread starter Mathman
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- Joined
- Oct 22, 2022
As I said to someone just this morning, I figure I'm good for another couple of decades then
(I didn't see the video here, it was one of Youtube's suggestions in their panel down the side while I was watching a different skating video last night. I guess it picks up on renewed interest in a clip? The one I watched had the announcers included at the beginning, but I knew it had been a Harvard show anyway.)
- Joined
- Jun 11, 2012
Yes, I don't think it's the greatest of all time (I'm still in the G&G camp on that designation) but given their ages it was incredibly remarkable. I loved how he looked at her and treated her as if she was fine china. I read or heard somewhere that they practiced all year for one competition. Pretty amazing couple. They were married for 60 years when Ludmilla died in 1957. They were responsible for creating many of the pairs movements used today including the death spiral (IIRC)
note: Thanks NanaPat. Ludmilla died in 2017. Oleg and Ludmilla got married in 1957!
note: Thanks NanaPat. Ludmilla died in 2017. Oleg and Ludmilla got married in 1957!
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- Joined
- Oct 22, 2022
For a long time they were the only pair who did the FO death spiral, which I think they invented. They never did throws or twists. Oleg thought it was "unchivalrous" for the man to just toss his partner around.
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- Jan 5, 2008
I loved Belousova and Protopopov and enjoyed watching them on my black and white TV in the 1960s. I think Ludmila had one of the most graceful entrances into the death spiral ever (without having to stick her bum out
).
My late wife and I went to a Junior Grand Prix in Lake Placid in the fall of 2007. While there we were walking through the older part of the building and going past the 1932 rink we saw some skaters. There were 4 people on the ice—a young girl and her her coach along with the Protopopovs. So we went in to watch and got a personal view of them practicing for a future performance. I think we may have been the only spectators other than the practice girl's mother. It was a wonderful experience.
).My late wife and I went to a Junior Grand Prix in Lake Placid in the fall of 2007. While there we were walking through the older part of the building and going past the 1932 rink we saw some skaters. There were 4 people on the ice—a young girl and her her coach along with the Protopopovs. So we went in to watch and got a personal view of them practicing for a future performance. I think we may have been the only spectators other than the practice girl's mother. It was a wonderful experience.
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- Jun 26, 2012
Sorry @Mathman. My bad. Not the best of all time, but pretty high on the list of good pair skaters through the ages.Wait, wait. I didn't mean that this performance was the greatest pairs performance ever. But the pair -- could be, could be.
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- Oct 22, 2022
And important to pairs as pioneers and innovators, like Torvill and Dean in ice dance. The Protopopovs changed their discipline significantly.
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- Feb 24, 2012
Wonderful skaters for any age. Of course being so senor in age affects your tricks but still wonderful and some of that old magic sines through still If you go to Edmonton Canada atheir mall I swear there is a statue of them with him lifting her. No one seems to know who the statue is o f but looking at their faces it is the Protopopovs. Even odder I saw Ekaterina GOrdeeva coaching behind this statue.
- Joined
- Jun 21, 2003
Here's the sculpture.
page 3 of the Edmonton Mall in Alberta
The two RV Gypsies, Karen and Lee Duquette, spent an entire day at the Edmonton Mall in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, because it is the largest shopping mall in North America and the tenth largest in the world, with so much more to offer besides just shopping. It was the world's largest mall until...
www.tworvgypsies.us
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- Joined
- Mar 22, 2004
The Protopopovs did do a couple of types of twists: see, for example, lutz entry single twist, and loop entry 1 1/2 twist (invented by Wagner and Paul). Maybe not what we would think of as a twist lift today, as the release is so brief that the woman barely gets any airtime, but the lutz twist at least is the precursor of today's multi-rotation twist lifts. (Loop entry twists didn't catch on, probably too hard to get multiple rotations?)
The 1960's was pretty much the wild west of pairs skating, with overhead lifts allowed for the first time, a variety of twist lift entries performed, throw jumps introduced, and new death spirals invented.
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- Oct 22, 2022
What Oleg objected to was the big twists where, he semi-joked once to an interviewer, "the man just throws the woman into the air and stands there watching to see if she comes down". Those low-level single twists, as done by many ice dancers these days, had been part of pairs since at least the 1950s. Dafoe and Bowden, twice world champions from Canada, did them as well as their signature "leap of faith" (the "reverse throw" in some vocabulary at the time), although I don't know if they were the first. As a newlywed still skating myself, I was at a dinner party once seated next to Norris Bowden, long after their retirement, and he told me they took many of their moves from watching professional show skaters, and were just the first to do them in amateur competition.
Personally, I avoid loop-anythings, jumps or throws, just because I'm right-handed but left-footed. To take off and land both on the right foot, my weaker side no matter how much I work at it, I need the oomph of picking with the left as in a toe loop. So certainly for me I wouldn't be able to do my half of the work to get a loop twist high enough to get the revolutions done. My partner would have to do more than his fair share, and a hard toss by him could throw off my balance in the air. Not worth the risk. Whether that's often the case with other pairs, I don't know.
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