Viktoria VOLCHKOVA

Results / Eredmények

International Competition:

ISU World Standings:
28 Jan. 2006: 24. - 2102 point

Volchkova's parents heard an announcement about figure skating lessons on the radio and took their daughter to the ice rink in St. Petersburg. Later Volchkova decided to move to Moscow, because she wanted to be coached by Viktor Kudriavtsev. This season, she got a second coach, Igor Rusakov, because she felt she needed something new and different in her training. The skater was handicapped by an achilles tendonitis early in the 2000/01 season. In spring 2002, Volchkova left Moscow and long-time coach Kudriavtsev to train with Oleg Vasiliev in Chicago. She moved back to Moscow in spring 2003 and is now coached by Tchaikovskaia and Kotin. After several changes of coaches, Volchkova is coached by Marina Kudriavtseva, the wife of  her former long-time coach Kudriavtsev since Russian Nationals 2004. Volchkova broke her wrist in a fall in practice in December 2004 and as a result missed the 2005 National Championships. She underwent meniscus surgery in September 2005 and returned to competition only for the 2006 National Championships. Volchkova is the first lady to win four consecutive bronze medals at Europeans. Volchkova has a cat named Matilda.

International Skating Union, Chemin de Primerose 2, CH - 1007 Lausanne 19.01.2006 

Comfortable in the big leagues

After winning a bronze medal at the 1998 World Junior Championships, Russia's Viktoria Volchkova graduated to the senior ranks. In 1999, she placed 10th at her first senior World Championships and won the first of her three straight bronze medals at the European Championships. She was still eligible to compete at the junior worlds in 1999, and she placed third for the second straight year. Volchkova placed sixth at the past two World Championships. Her favorite competitive moments are the 2001 World Championships, in which she skated clean long programs in the qualifying round and in the free skate, and the 1998 Goodwill Games in New York. At the Goodwill Games, her first trip to the United States, the then-16-year-old Volchkova was thrilled to be skating in the same competition with reigning world champion Michelle Kwan and countrywoman and 1999 world champion Maria Butyrskaya. She performed well to place third behind those two skaters.

Plotting presentation

Volchkova is a strong technical skater whose artistic (presentation) marks tend to be lower than those for technical merit in her free skate. In the free skate at the 2001 World Championships, her technical merit scores ranged from 5.5 to 5.7, but most of her artistic scores were at least two-tenths of a point lower. Following the 2000-2001 season, Volchkova switched choreographers and began to work with Yelena Matveyeva in an effort to impove her overall presentation.

Radio waves

Volchkova started skating as a young girl when her parents heard an announcement about figure skating lessons on the radio and took her to the rink in St. Petersburg. She moved to Moscow at age 13 to train with Viktor Kudriavtsev. She remains in Moscow, where she attends a physical culture university.  

Official Olympic Site 2002.

Pictures / Képek