Anton SIKHARULIDZE

Born in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) to a Georgian family, Anton Sikharulidze took up skating at the age of 5 and took up pairs skating at the age of 15. His first partner was Mariya Petrova and together they became World Junior Champions in 1994 and 1995. Sikharulidze and Petrova last competed together at the 1996 European Championships, but then parted ways due to coaching disagreements.

In early 1996, Yelena Berezhnaya, with whom Sikharulidze had became romantically involved a year before, had a serious training accident, that left her partially paralyzed, so Sikharulidze moved to Riga, Latvia, where Berezhnaya was hospitalized. Berezhnaya made an unusually quick recovery, and they started training together in November 1996 and soon rose to be one of the top pairs in the World. They won Olympic gold in 2002 and silver in 1998. They were also World Champions in 1998 and 1999, taking silver in 2001. They also won European titles in 1998 and 2001 and a European Championships bronze in 1997. The pair initially won the 2000 European Championships, but were later stripped of their medals after Berezhnaya tested positive for pseudoephedrine. She had taken cold medication approved by a doctor but had failed to inform the ISU as required and as a result they were disqualified from sports for three months from the date of the test. The pair also missed the World Championships that year as a result of the disqualification.

After 2002 Olympics, Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze retired from competition and from 2002-06 toured together with Stars on Ice. In 2007, Sikharulidze entered politics, although he later made occasional appearances at some Russian ice TV shows like Ice Age. A member of the United Russia political party, Sikharulidze was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Saint Petersburg in 2007. On 2 December 2007, he was also elected to the Russian State Duma (parliament), and became chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee for Physical Culture and Sport. In 2010, Sikharulidze ran for the presidency of the Russian Figure Skating Federation, but withdrew after the constitution was altered, stating that the changes left the president as nothing more than a figurehead. In 2011, Sikharulidze married Yana Lebedeva, the daughter of Russian billionaire Leonid Lebedev.