Ballet star Sergei Polunin proposed to Olympic champion Elena Ilinykh. The skater agreed without hesitation. Note that Sergey and Elena already have two sons - Mir and Dar.
Telecomasia will give you a closer look at the charming figure skater and tell you how she met her love.
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The ballet dancer shared the happy news with his followers on social networks: "Will you marry me? My heart and soul belong to you. I love you," Polunin wrote. He also showed a box with a diamond engagement ring. Later, Ilyinikh posted an Instagram story where she said yes.
Ilyinikh started skating thanks to her grandmother
Elena Ilinykh was born on April 25, 1994, in the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan. The girl was raised by her mother and grandmother. Her parents divorced when the daughter was two years old. Elena started skating at four at the initiative of her grandmother to improve her health.
The coaches recognized the girl's talent from the first lessons and transferred her to a sports group. So she first came to "Sokolniki" to Lyubov Maleva and later went to "Moskvich" to Natalia Dubinskaya. At the age of 10, Elena was already doing triple jumps.
She broke up with Katsalapov and moved to the USA
In 2005 Ilinykh switched from singles to pairs of figure skating. Nikita Katsalapov became her partner. Since the skaters had previously been singles skaters, they couldn't get along and argued all the time. Even their mentors - Irina Lobacheva and Ilia Averbukh - couldn't handle the conflicting skaters. That is why a year later, the couple broke up.
In 2006, Elena went to the United States, where she trained as a couple with Ivan Bukin. Marina Zueva and Igor Shpilband were the couple's coaches. But Ilyinykh and her new partner didn't make it work either, so the skater returned to Russia in 2009.
She returned to Katsalapov and won the Olympic gold
Ironically, in Moscow, Elena returned to her former partner Nikita Katsalapov. The guys decided to start from scratch under the guidance of Alexander Zhulin and Elena Volkova. Their first serious achievements were the Russian Junior Cup and the gold medal at the Junior World Championships in The Hague.
In 2010 the skaters reached the adult level. Nikolai Morozov started to train them. It was with him that Elena and Nikita went to the Olympics in Sochi. The "Swan Lake" program, set to music by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, brought Ilinykh and Katsalapov gold in the team competition and bronze in the individual competition.
Why did Ilinykh and Katsalapov break up?
But despite their triumph at the Olympics, the couple broke up. Ilinykh went to Ruslan Zhiganshin and Katsalapov to Victoria Sinitsina. Elena Kustarova and Svetlana Alexeeva became the coaches of the duo.
What was the reason for the breakup of the promising pair, who used to shine at the home Olympics in Sochi? Ilinykh blamed Katsalapov for the breakup, while he remained silent. However, there is a plausible version that it wasn't Nikita's fault at all. Perhaps it was Elena's love affair with her coach, Nikolai Morozov. The one, who was preparing the duet for the Games in Sochi.
Evidence that Ilyinikh and her coach were not only connected by work began to appear long ago. The skater was seen at the same resort with Morozov, they had dinner at the same restaurant, and kissed in front of everyone. Also many people noticed that Ilinykh always tried to be closer to Morozov than to Katsalapov during training sessions. But it is impossible to say for sure about the love affair between the coach and the skater, because none of them confirmed this information. We can only guess...
Achievements with Ruslan Zhiganshin
The pair Zhiganshin/Ilyinykh did not have any particular accomplishments, except for winning the Russian championship. Thus, they were only fourth in 2015 at the European Championships in Stockholm, and at the World Championships in Shanghai even seventh. The only victory of the skaters at the international level was gold at the Tallinn Trophy. In 2017 the pair broke up and Zhiganshin ended his career. In 2019, his example was followed by Ilinykh due to failures with his new partner Anton Shibnev.
Meeting her future husband
The figure skater met Polunin in 2018. The girl watched the film "Dancer", dedicated to the work of Sergei, and decided to write to him on social networks. In response, the ballet dancer offered Elena participation in his new project "Rasputin". The premiere of the drama performance took place in May 2019. The athlete appeared in the character of Empress Alexandra. The debut of the figure skater went brilliantly.
After the premiere, Elena and Sergei began to date and later started to live together. In January 2020 they had a son Mir, and in April 2022 - Dar. All that was left was the wedding.
Elena starred in the music video of the singer SIA
The figure skater is not afraid to try her hand at different roles. In spring 2021, Lena starred in a music video of a popular singer SIA. In the video, for the song "Music" the girl performed a mesmerizing dance in an ice cave. By the way, her lover Sergei Polunin was the video director.
