Along with the Winter Games, it’s Valentine’s Day soon. A relationship is full of joyful romance, but also has some pressure involved. Here are four who rose to the challenge in Olympic form.
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Sergei Grinkov and Ekaterina Gordeeva
In the world of figure skating, couples in Pair Skating and Ice Dancing either end up happily in love, or hating each other; the former because your partner is the only person you end up seeing for days on end, the latter because it’s hard to have a healthy relationship with someone when one of you making a mistake on ice could spell the end of your gold medal aspirations. Or he could quite literally drop you on the ice.
Luckily for us, legendary USSR and Russian pair skaters Sergei Grinkov and Ekaterina Gordeeva fell in love. They met in 1981 when Grinkov was 14 and Gordeeva 11. Rising quickly up the ranks, they won the major junior competitions, and when they turned Senior, won subsequent World Championships before winning Gold at the 1998 Calgary Olympics for the USSR.
In Gordeeva’s book My Sergei: A Love Story, she talks about when they fell in love. They took a trip to a sauna and he kissed her. 16-year-old Katia wasn’t quite sure:
“After we had kissed, I asked, “Seriozha, why did you pick me? I’m not old enough. I’m not beautiful enough. My body’s not perfect.”
But when I had expressed these doubts, Sergei put his fingers to my lips and said, “You’re wrong. You’re old enough, you’re already seventeen. You have a beautiful body. Everything’s going to be okay. I love you just the way you are, Katoosha. Just as you are right now.”
My Sergei: A Love Story
It was the start of one of the most beautiful personal relationships that combined spectacularly well with a professional one. Known as G&G, They won two more World Championships before giving up their amateur status (in those years, only amateur athletes could compete for prestigious prizes), and marrying in 1991.
In 1992, their daughter Daria was born. When at the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics, professionals could compete, they represented Russia and won the Gold once more. This Gold medal, said Gordeeva, they won for each other.
“With Sergei and me, everything was natural, almost inevitable,” Gordeeva writes. “First we were skating partners. Then we were friends. Then we were close friends. Then we were lovers. Then husband and wife. Then parents.”
It should have been a happy ending, but life rarely is. In November 1995, Grinkov died of a heart attack. He was 28, his wife was 24, and their daughter was three years old.
Gordeeva resumed skating as a soloist, performing at a tribute for Grinkov in 1996, and releasing the book. She eventually fell in love again with another legendary figure skater, 1998 Nagano Olympics Gold medalist Ilia Kulik, whom she married in 2002. They have a daughter, Liza.
The couple divorced in 2016, and Gordeeva remarried in July 2020 with Canadian Ice Dancer and 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics gold medal winner David Pelletier. (This means all her partners have been Gold medalists. Go, girl!)
Rivals in Love
The most intense rivalry in hockey is the one between the Women of the US and Canada. Since Women’s Hockey became an Olympic sport, five out of six Gold medal games at the games have been between the two powerhouses, with Canada taking the lead 3-2.
On the ice, the competition is ferocious: these games are always the most intense because Women’s hockey is at a disparity with men’s, due to the lack of a sustainable league that offers a livable salary.
For these women, the Olympics are their biggest game, and it only happens every four years (unlike the men, who compete in the NHL for the Stanley Cup every year). Every game ends with an upswing of emotions for both sides, with one side celebrating with happy tears, and the other with frustration.
Amidst all of this, surprisingly, some pairs have fallen in love, gotten married, and have children together. To date, there are three couples: Kathleen Kauth (USA) and Jayna Hefford (CAN), Julie Chu (USA) and Caroline Ouellette (CAN), and Meghan Duggan (USA) and Gillian Apps (CAN).
Chu and Ouellette’s professional rivalry started at the 2002 Nagano Olympics before they got together in 2005. Chu experienced professional heartbreak against Canada in the 2010 Vancouver and 2014 Sochi Olympics, the latter of which was the hardest because, for the pair, it was their last.
“That was really difficult,” Ouellette told Sports Illustrated. “We both knew it was our last Olympics. But we’ve always been there for one another. That’s why it’s worked out.”
Worked out it did: Chu and Oullette married in 2018, and are now the mothers of two children: 4-year-old Liv and 21-year-old Tessa. “In a relationship, you want to connect with someone who you can relate to, who really understands what you’re going through,” said Chu.
Duggan and Apps went through the same thing. After getting together in 2013, they competed against each other for the 2014 Games. “It’s not something that I would necessarily recommend for people to compete for an Olympic gold medal against the person that you’re dating,” said Apps. The loss, says Duggan, was an incredibly challenging time for the couple.
In 2018, the US finally won their second Gold medal, with Duggan as the captain, and Apps happily celebrated with her (she had retired at that point). They also got married in 2008, and are now mothers to George and Olivia.
Each time there is a major USA versus Canada game taking place, both couples are always asked how they prepare for it, or who the children are rooting for. The kids are too young to choose their national allegiances, but the parents have fun on social media with fun bets.
For the latest preliminary round game between the US and Canada at these Olympics, the couples had a bet: the loser has to get the kids ready while the winner gets to have a lie-in. Unfortunately, the US lost, so Chu and Duggan had to get the kids up.
Madison Chock and Evan Bates
If you asked the average person (or Canadian) with a passing interest in skating which Ice Dancing pair they wished were together, they would probably say: “Those horny Canadian Ice Dancers” (Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir).
Unfortunately, Tessa and Scott are not together (Tessa is, however, dating Toronto Maple Leafs hockey player Morgan Reilly). The couple that is, however, is Team USA’s Madison Chock and Evan Bates.
Originally skating with other people, Chock and Bates became an Ice Dancing Pair in 2011, and the 2022 Beijing Olympics are the second time the pair will be skating as boyfriend and girlfriend. In 2018, they fell during the Pyeongchang Games, so this year’s go is very much a trial of redemption for both of them.
Even if they only got together in 2017, their first date was more than a decade ago. In an interview with Inside Edition, Choc talked about the time Bates took her out for her 16th birthday, saying that it was really fun. She wore a black ruffled dress and pink heels. Bates described it as a childhood romance.
Being in a relationship while competing seems hard because of all the pressure, but Chock told NBC it has helped up their passion quota (always a plus for judges and a thrill for fans).
“Skating together is something that we love doing, and we love doing it together. Now, we’re together on and off the ice and it makes it even more powerful. It feels completely genuine and real.”
Both of them believe that their challenges while in competition have helped the growth of their relationship. “If everything had been going swimmingly over the past few seasons, with gold medals galore, I think, through it all, the difficult times created a really beautiful relationship that we now share,” Bates told NBC. “Who knows? Maybe it would’ve never happened if everything was going great.”
