Elena Grushina & Ruslan Goncharov / Photo by Dushenka

Elena Grushina and Ruslan Goncharov continue their move to the top in skating by winning the Bronze Medal at the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Tornio, Italy.

The Olympic Bronze comes after the pair won the Bronze Medal at the 2005 World Championships.

Both Elena and Ruslan started taking ballet as children, which accounts for much of their grace on the ice.

Their favorite compulsory dances are waltz and tango and their least favorite is killian.

Elena began skating at age 4 in 1979 and before skating with Ruslan skated with Mikhail Tashliski. After the two years, Mikhail went off to school and Elena was paired with Ruslan in 1990.

Ruslan began skating at age 6 in 1978 and was partnered with Eleonora Grinsaya for 1 year. Leonora had health problems and Ruslan was then paired with Elena.

Ruslan's younger brother, Artur, is an ice dancer.

Elena and Ruslan like to skate programs that will keep the audience remembering their skate.
Their favorite competition trip was the 1998 Nagano Olympics. They were very proud to represent their country at the Olympics. They also enjoyed watching other sports events at such a large competition involving not only skating.

At the ISCC, Elena and Ruslan train daily from Monday through Friday and are usually finished for the day by 5 or 6 pm. They have the weekends off. This schedule is different from the training schedule they had in Newark, DE where they trained 6 days per week with Sundays off and with training hours often split with a morning and late night session.

After the 1996-97 season, Elena and Ruslan's rink in Odessa closed. They then moved to the U.S. to train with Linichuk & Karponosov. Before moving, they had been coached by Alexander Tumanovski.

From 1997-2002, Elena and Ruslan trained with Linichuk and Karponosov at the University of Delaware in Newark, Delaware. With few exceptions, their programs were usually choreographed by Natalia Linichuk.

In April 2002, Elena and Ruslan made the decision to leave Linichuk and Delaware and move to Connecticut to train under Tatiana Tarasova.

In November 2002, the coaching partnership of Tatiana Tarasova & Nikolai Morozov came to an end. Facing a difficult decision, Elena and Ruslan made the choice to stay with Tarasova and changed their training rink to the ISCC rink in Simsbury.

In April 2003, Elena and Ruslan decided to return to training in Newington under coach Nikolai Morozov.

They are also married. They were wed in 1995, which accounts for their "we are as one" appearance on the ice.

They would like their fans to know that they appreciate all of the flowers, gifts and stuffed animals that are thrown onto the ice for them. Everything means a lot to them. They wish to thank all of the fans and people who follow figure skating for their support.

Elena Grushina

Name	Elena Grushina
Born	January 8, 1975
Birthplace	Odessa, Ukraine
Training town	Newington, Conn., Connecticut International Skating Center
Coach	Nikolai Morozov
Choreographer	Nikolai Morozov
Home Club	Sport Military Club, Odessa, Ukraine

Ruslan Goncharov

Name	Ruslan Goncharov
Born	January 20, 1973
Birthplace	Odessa, Ukraine
Training Town	Newington, Conn., Connecticut International Skating Center
Coach	Nikolai Morozov
Choreographer	Nikolai Morozov
Home Club	Sport Military Club, Odessa, Ukraine
Original dance	Samba: Cameval of Batreada by Peter Prade
	Rhumba: Cameval of Batreada by Peter Prade
	Samba: Cameval of Batreada by Peter Prade
Free dance	The Feeling Begins (from Passion) by Peter Gabriel
Personal best score	213.95 World Championships (2005)
Compulsory dance	41.30 World Championships (2005)
Original dance	63.23 Cup of Russia (2004)
Free dance	109.48 World Championships (2005)