Olympic champions who married Olympic champions

[Vash01]

I am excluding pairs that married each other (like Gordeeva-Grinkov or ice dance couples like Drobiazko-Vanagas).

Some Olympic champions married other Olympic champions. Here is a list that I came up with:

Carol Heiss and one of the Jenkins brothers (David? Hays?)

Ekaterina Gordeeva and Ilia Kulik

Tatiana Totmianina and Alexei Yagudin

That's all I can think of. There must be more.

[luCN]

my first thought-Soviet and then Russia have so many Olympic champions!

btw,I think Yagudin hasn't got married yet,although I hope he did

[Vash01]

my first thought-Soviet and then Russia have so many Olympic champions!

btw,I think Yagudin hasn't got married yet,although I hope he did

I know they are not married, but they are a couple with a child now.

[Oreo]

If you're going by Olympic medalists, then Lu Chen and Denis Petrov count. They're married with two children.

[snoopysnake]

If you count in-laws by marriage, Annett Poetzch married Katarina Witt's brother. (I believe she is now married to someone else, though.)

[Vash01]

If you're going by Olympic medalists, then Lu Chen and Denis Petrov count. They're married with two children.

For this thread I was only looking at Olympic Champions who married each other; not Olympic medallists.

[FiveRinger]

The only couple that I thought of was Christopher Dean and Isabelle Duschenay. But I don't guess they count because she won a medal, wasn't a champion and they are no longer married.

[vivika1982]

David Pelletier and Jamie Salé co-won 2002 Olympics in pairs and got married in 2005.
Nathalia Linichuk and Genady Karponosov got married after they won in 1980.
Irina Rodnina and Alexander Zaitcev got married in 1979 which is 3 years after they won their first Olympic gold medal in 1976 and one year before their second medal in 1980.

Also Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo but i guess it doesn't count since they were already married.

[Vash01]

I am not counting husband/wife teams in pairs and ice dance. That's too obvious (both winning OGM)

[orientalplane]

For this thread I was only looking at Olympic Champions who married each other; not Olympic medallists.

I am not counting husband/wife teams in pairs and ice dance. That's too obvious (both winning OGM)

Well, no offence, but you're being very picky. There aren't going to be very many if you insist on being that specific. Christopher Dean also married world champion Jill Trenary, though they have now split. Yagudin and Totmianina aren't married.

[Susan M]

...Christopher Dean also married world champion Jill Trenary, though they have now split.

He also married Isabel Duchesnay, World Champion and Olympic *silver* medalist. (I guess this is the flip side of Zhulin-Navka silver-gold).

I don't know that our collective memories go back far enough to do this question justice.

[Perky Shae Lynn]

Well, no offence, but you're being very picky. There aren't going to be very many if you insist on being that specific. Christopher Dean also married world champion Jill Trenary, though they have now split. Yagudin and Totmianina aren't married.

Well, it's her question - she can be as specific as she wants ; besides, listing marries pairs/dancers kind of defeats the purpose of the thread.

[Bronxfan]

If you count in-laws by marriage, Annett Poetzch married Katarina Witt's brother. (I believe she is now married to someone else, though.)

I am visiting my sister and last night we were watching Savchenko and Szolkowy perform. I always like to show off how much I know about skating, so I said to her, "He used to skate with Katarina Witt's niece, Claudia Rauschenbach." Anett Poetzsch married Katarina's brother, Axel. They had Claudia and then divorced. Anett then married pairs skater Axel Rauschenbach and he legally adopted Claudia - that is why her last name is Rauschenbach and not Witt.

This also leads to one of those unique circles in figure skating:

Robin Szolkowy used to skate with Claudia Rauschenbach.

Claudia Rauschenbach is the step-daughter of Axel Rauschenbach.

Axel Rauschenbach used to skate pairs with Mandy Woetzel.

Mandy Woetzel then skated pairs with Ingo Steuer.

Ingo Steuer coaches Robin Szolkowy.


It's like being back in Logic class!!

[Vash01]

Well, no offence, but you're being very picky. There aren't going to be very many if you insist on being that specific. Christopher Dean also married world champion Jill Trenary, though they have now split. Yagudin and Totmianina aren't married.

I wanted to be picky and specific when I started this thread. I am not interested in how many pairs and ice dance teams married each other (we have had those threads before), or how many Olympic medallists/world medallists married each other. An Olympic champion marrying another Olympic champion is such a rare occurrence when they are not paired together, that I felt it was worth exploring. As expected, the list is very short. I only know starting from Heiss/Jenkins. May be there were more in the past?

Afterall this was my question, and this is what interested me. You can always start a thread that interests you.

[aftershocks]

I am visiting my sister and last night we were watching Savchenko and Szolkowy perform. I always like to show off how much I know about skating, so I said to her, "He used to skate with Katarina Witt's niece, Claudia Rauschenbach." Anett Poetzsch married Katarina's brother, Axel. They had Claudia and then divorced. Anett then married pairs skater Axel Rauschenbach and he legally adopted Claudia - that is why her last name is Rauschenbach and not Witt.

This also leads to one of those unique circles in figure skating:

Robin Szolkowy used to skate with Claudia Rauschenbach.

Claudia Rauschenbach is the step-daughter of Axel Rauschenbach.

Axel Rauschenbach used to skate pairs with Mandy Woetzel.

Mandy Woetzel then skated pairs with Ingo Steuer.

Ingo Steuer coaches Robin Szolkowy.


It's like being back in Logic class!!

Wow, pretty cool. I did know that Robin skated with Claudia before he partnered with Aliona, but I didn't know about any of the other connections, except of course, that Mandy skated with Ingo who now coaches Robin and Aliona.

Perhaps another question might be, "What Olympic champions or medalists went on to do great things in their lives, or was it all down hill after the podium high?"

[googooeyes]

Carol Heiss & David Jenkins from the U.S.

[Susan M]

There have also been some in other sports - Nadia Comacheche and Bart Conner (gymnastics), Hal Connolly and Olga Fikatova (track and field), Florence Griffith and Al Joiner (track & field) come immediately to mind.

(I noticed the question is not actually limited to figure skating Olympic champions.)

[Vash01]

Susan M, you are correct. Although I was only thinking of FS, the way the question was stated, it should be OK to look at OGM winners in any discipline. Earlier I was wondering if there was an Olympic champion in FS who married an Olympic champion in a different discipline (summer Olympics included), but can't think of any.

[maureenfarone]

Carol Heiss & David Jenkins from the U.S.

Carol Heiss is married to Hayes Alan Jenkins (older brother of David Jenkins).

[manleywoman]

Vasiliev and Valova