Marina Vladimirovna Klimova (Russian: Марина Владимировна Климова; born 28 June 1966) is a former competitive ice dancer who competed for the Soviet Union and the Unified Team. With skating partner and husband Sergei Ponomarenko, she is the 1992 Olympic champion, the 1988 Olympic silver medalist, the 1984 Olympic bronze medalist, a three-time World champion, and a four-time European champion.
In 1989, Klimova and Ponomarenko won the first of their four consecutive European titles. They also won the 1989 World Championships and narrowly won another World gold in 1990 on the strength of their compulsories and their original dance, and even though they lost the free dance to Isabelle Duchesnay and Paul Duchesnay from France. In 1991, their free dance was choreographed to music from the film Lawrence of Arabia; figure skating writer Ellyn Kestnbaum states that the program "escapes gendering by representing different elements of nature",[3] with Klimova representing the wind and Ponomarenko representing the sands of the desert. Klimova wore a blue unitard without a skirt and billowing panels set in the sides of her legs that signified her as the wind. Her movements throughout the program also evoked the wind. Kestnbaum states that their free dance "replicates classical gender positions".[3] Kestnbaum also states their the relationship Klimova and Ponomarenko present "is not gendered stereotypically, but it is figured as difference, as opposing elements".[4]
At the 1991 World Championships, they had a setback when they placed second to the Duchesnays. Four months before the Olympics, they decided to leave coach Natalia Dubova.[5] They re-established themselves as the top ice dancers in the world by winning another 1992 European title and then capturing the 1992 Olympic title. They ended their season with their third World title. They retired from eligible skating after the World Championships and turned to professional and show skating.
Their free skate program at the 1992 Winter Olympics, entitled "A Man and a Woman: From the Mundane to the Sublime," "returned to the images of difference and woman as other".[6] Klimova and Ponomarenko's costumes were both black and gray: she wore a black unitard with gray chiffon-like webbings or wings between her arms and legs and a spiderweb across her chest, and wore her red curly hair loose over her shoulders, while he wore a loose shirt and trousers, with a sash around his waist.[6] Kestnbaum called their program "a highly eroticized duet to music by J.S. Bach".[6] Kestnbaum also reported that the program displayed Kimova's beauty and flexibility and Ponomarenko's strength, stating that their movements, spider imagery, and costumes depicted that "the man is normative and the woman an exotic danger".[6]
Klimova and Ponomarenko were inducted into the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 2000.[7] They coach young figure skaters at Sharks Ice in San Jose, California. They were known as "traditionalists with a light elegant touch"[3] and for excelling both technically and artistically.
Personal life
Klimova and Ponomarenko married in September 1984. They now reside in the United States in Morgan Hill, California. They have two sons, Tim Ponomarenko, born in 1998, and Anthony Ponomarenko, born on January 5, 2001, in San Jose, California.[8] Anthony is a competitive ice dancer for the United States.[8][9]
^ abcKestnbaum, Ellyn (2003). Culture on Ice: Figure Skating and Cultural Meaning. Middleton, Connecticut: Wesleyan Publishing Press. p. 234. ISBN0-8195-6641-1.
