Artur DMITRIYEV

Nataliya Mishkutyonok and Artur Dmitriyev rose to prominence at the 1988 European Championships, where they were fourth. They won a bronze at the 1989 European Championships, their first international championships medal, repeated that feat at the 1990 European Championships, and won their first medal at the 1990 World Championships, also a bronze. In 1991, after the World’s top pair, Katya Gordeyeva and Sergey Grinkov turned professional, Mishkutyonok and Dmitriyev rose to be the world’s top pair, winning gold at both the World and European Championships, which they also repeated in 1992, also adding a gold at the 1992 Winter Olympics. After the 1992 Winter Olympics, Mishkutyonok and Dmitriyev turned professional and won a bronze at the 1993 World Professional Championships, but when a new ISU rule allowed professional skaters to regain their Olympic eligibility, the pair returned to amateur competition for the 1993-94 season and skated at the Winter Olympics, where they won silver behind Gordeyeva and Grinkov, who had also returned to amateur competition. Mishkutyonok and Dmitriyev also won a bronze at the 1994 European Championships. They never won a Soviet or Russian title, but were runners-up at the 1990 and 1991 Soviet and 1994 Russian Championships. After the 1994 Winter Olympics, Mishkutenok retired and Dmitriev found a new partner, Oksana Kazakova. The pair won the 1996 European Championships, silver at the 1998 European Chamopionships and bronze at the 1997 World Championships, also winning gold at the 1998 Winter Olympics, which made Dmitriev the first male skater to win the pairs event twice with different partners. After the 1998 Winter Olympics, Dmitriyev and Kazakova turned professional and skated three more years, winning the 1998 World Professional Championships, before retiring from competition. After his retirement, Dmitriyev worked as a figure skating coach in both the United States and Russia and was active with the Russian Figure Skating Federation. From 1992-2006 Dmitriyev was married to Soviet gymnast Tatyana Druchinina, who later become a choreographer and choreographed the Olympic programs of ice dancers Tatyana Navka and Roman Kostomarov when they won Olympic gold in 2006.