Just now I found some information about her single's career. She was Japan junior Nationals bronze medalist in 1998 and Mexico Cup winner of Junior Grand Prix in 1999. Then in 1999 she moved to the USA and switched to pairs. She competed for Japan with Alexander Markuntsov. They were the first who won an ISU medal for Japan in pair skating, Junior Worlds silver in 2001. Their coach was Igor Moskvin, Tamara's husband. Actually I saw only one video of Kawaguchi and Markuntsov and remembered it because of a syncro fall in their SBS jump.
Youtube video of Yuko and Alexander: 4CC 2001,
Free Skate to Spartacus
Here’s the SBS synchro fall on 3-toe:
Short program Trophé Lalique 2001, skating to Carmen, both 19 years old. A lot of talking(information) during the skate.
She skated with Devin Patrick 2004-2006
http://www.tracings.net/kawa-patr.html
2005 Yuko and Devin Patrick practicing
According to wikipedia, Markuntsov began skating in shows with Catherine Harvey from Britain in 2008. They married in 2010 and are/were teaching figure skating in Birmingham.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Markuntsov
I dug through my old video tapes and found Worlds in Washington 2003. There they were, skating in yellow costumes, a short program to Rachmaninov; charming performance with neat elements. Inventive spiral and spins. Artur Dmitriev watching and smiling in the audience and Moskvina beside them in K&C
Technical points 4.4-5.6. (LOL, I would have given them positive GOE on all elements) Presentation 4.3-5.7. Placements 4-9. I think I heard booing.
Free skate to ’Those were the days’, Beatles. Great lifts and throws. Placements 3-7. In the end they finished 12th.
Kudos to Yuko and Moskvina. What a long ’up and down’ journey they are on!
Side note: Nostalgic watching the pairs competition from 2003. Only 13 years ago, but so different from now. Many pairs I don’t remember, but obviously Kavaguchi/Markuntsov caught my attention. Shen/Zhao won, Totmianina/Marinin did a fabulous short, Abitbol/Bernadis stopped skating due too pain in her left foot and were allowed to continue within two minutes, Hao Zhang as a youngster, a dark haired Volosochar skating with a guy named Kharchenko….. I know…another story…
