Figure Skating -- Ice Dancing
Learn More About The Sport
It may look easy, but to dance on ice like the Olympic competitors takes years of practice and sacrifice.
"When we started, Irina and I, (we were) maybe 5 years old, very young. We just kept practicing every day, every day practice. For us it's like normal, like walk in street," Averbukh said.
Lobacheva and Averbuckh went into the Olympics as world bronze medallists. Four years ago, they left their home to train at the University of Delaware. Twelve of this year's Olympic athletes representing six countries have been trained at the university's Fred Rust Ice Rink. It was once the training site for gold medallist Tara Lipinski.
"One of the reasons that we have such a large international group is because I hired two coaches from Russia, husband and wife Olympic champions of 1980, Natalia Linichuk and Gennadi Karponosov," Olympic coach Ron Ludington said.
Under the direction of their Russian coaches, ice dancers competing in this year's Winter Games practiced their routines.
In ice dancing, the final score is based on three components shown to the judges in three dances. Twenty percent of the score is based on compulsory dance, when all the skaters dance the same steps. Thirty percent is based on the original dance, where skaters can come up with their own dance steps. Fifty percent of their score is based on what's called the free dance, when skaters come up with their own steps, but they can be a lot more creative.
"Our new free dance about for memory of Sept. 11," Averbuckh said.
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