Russian pairs skating dominance is unlike anything we have seen in the United States. Here is how they stack up against America’s most dominant teams.
Dating back to 1964, pair skaters – from what was then the Soviet Union – have dominated their discipline within figure skating. Lyudmila Belousova and Oleg Protopopov were the first of five straight teams who would combine to win seven gold medals until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Belousova and Potopopov began their reign by winning three straight silver world championships from 1962-1964, before winning Olympic gold at the 1964 Winter Games in Innsbruck.