Table of Biography
Irina Slutskaya is a former Russian figure skater. Irina Slutskaya was one of the most successful and prominent female skaters in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Early Life
Irina Slutskaya was born in Moscow, Russia, on the 9th of February 1979. Currently, she is 45 years old and has a birth sign of Aquarius. Her full name is Irina Eduardovna Slutskaya and holds Russian nationality. Furthermore, she belongs to the Jewish-Russian ethnicity.
She was the only child of a Russian mother and a Jewish father. However, she has not disclosed the identities of her parents. In addition, her mother was a former cross-country skier for the Soviet Union. At the age of four, she began skating.
Irina Slutskaya – Education
In terms of her academics, she graduated from the Moscow Academy of Physical Culture in 2000.
Professional Career
Irina Slutskaya rose to fame as a promising junior skater by winning the bronze medal at the 1994 World Junior Championships, held in December 1993 in Colorado Springs.
Furthermore, in the 1994-95 season, she maintained her progress; after winning the 1995 World Junior Championship in Budapest in November 1994, she earned bronze at the 1995 Russian Championships, qualifying for her first senior ISU Championship. At the 1995 European Championships, she recovered from a fall in the short program to finish third in free skating and fifth overall.
Caption: Irina Slutskaya performing in the figure competition (Source: Britannica)
She went on to win the European Championships in 1997, 2000, and 2001, as well as the Russian National Championship and the International Skating Union (ISU) Grand Prix Final in 2000, 2001, and 2002, respectively.
At the 2000 Grand Prix Final in Lyon, France, she became the first woman to accomplish the challenging triple lutz-triple loop combination. She improved on that in the 2001 World Championships, where she completed a triple lutz-triple loop-double toe loop combination.
Took a break from her Skating Career
She took a leave of absence from the rink in 2003 to care for her ill mother, a kidney transplant candidate who required dialysis three times weekly. One year later, Slutskaya was hospitalized with pericarditis, an infection of the heart’s lining; she also had chronic asthmatic bronchitis and pneumonia, and she felt she would never be able to skate competitively again. Her sickness caused her to miss practically every competition during the 2004 season. She competed at the 2004 World Championship but she finished ninth due to a lack of fitness.
Return to Skating
However, after regaining her form in late 2004, she was able to make a comeback. In January 2005, she won her fourth Russian national championship, and in March, she finished an unbeaten season by winning the ISU women’s singles world championship for the second time in four years with an aggressive, error-free performance featuring seven triple jumps.
In contrast to her 2002 success, which came one month after she won the silver medal at the 2002 Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, Utah, Slutskaya’s stunning performance in Moscow occurred after she had missed nearly two complete skating seasons.
She won her seventh European championship gold in 2006, and she earned bronze in the Olympic Games in Turin, Italy, that year. Although she dismissed rumors that she was retiring from figure skating, Slutskaya did not compete in the world championships that took place immediately after the Olympics in Turin, and she did not participate in any major competitive competitions thereafter.
Post Career
After her retirement, she presented figure skating reality shows on Russia Channel 1 Stars on Ice with co-host Evgeni Plushenko and Ice Age with actor Marat Basharov. In 2008, she appeared in Hot Ice, a Russian television soap opera about figure skating.
She also travelled as the lead skater for the Russian version of the show “Winx on Ice.” In November 2008, she appeared in the Skate from the Heart show. She was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in the year 2009.
In 2011, she appeared in Yuna Kim’s All That Skate Summer ice show, which included the 2010 Winter Olympic champion. Slutskaya took part in the first Medal Winners Open, which was open to Olympic and World medalists. She finished third in the ladies category. Moreover, she was an ambassador for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
Irina Slutskaya – Net Worth 2024
Irina has not disclosed her current income. Her net worth is reported to be between $1 million-$5 million.
Relationship Status
On June 23, 2018, Irina Slutskaya married her boyfriend, Aleksey Govyrin. With the marriage, the couple has a daughter named Kira and the family is living happily. In the past, she married Sergei Mikheev in August 1999.
Caption: Irina Slutskaya’s family photo (Source: Instagram)
The couple met each other three years earlier at a summer camp near Moscow, where Mikheev was a physical education instructor. With the marriage, the couple has two kids; Artem and Varvara. The couple divorced in 2016 after having a 25-year marital life.
Controversy
Irina became embroiled in controversy during the Winter Olympics after defeating Michelle Kwan but losing to Sarah Hughes for the gold medal. Furthermore, the Italian judge’s choice to rank her fourth was contentious. Currently, there are no speculations about her life or work.
Body Measurements
Caption: Irina Slutskaya posing for a photo (Source: Instagram)
This former skater is 5 feet 6 inches tall (1.68 m) and weighs around 55kg (108 lbs). In addition, she has a pair of blue eyes with dark brown hair colour and her body measurement is 35-25-35 inches.
Irina Slutskaya – Social Media
On her Instagram page ‘@slutskayaofficial’ there are over 415k followers. Other than this, she is not present on Facebook and Twitter.