In March 1979, 11 months before the Lake Placid Olympic Games, one of the greatest winning runs in figure skating was interrupted. For ten consecutive years at the World Championships, Irina Rodnina won in pairs, alternately with Alexei Ulanov and Alexander Zaitsev, until she missed the world championship in Vienna due to the birth of a child.
In the absence of Rodnina and Zaitsev, the championship was seized not by Soviet or German skaters, but by the American - Tai Babilonia and Randy Gardner unexpectedly won the second and last to this day gold for the USA in pairs.
For Rodnina, aiming for her third consecutive Olympic victory, this was an alarming signal. It’s one thing when your competitors at the main start of the fourth anniversary are duets from the GDR or your own compatriots, and it’s quite another when they are the hosts of the next Olympics, with whom the Cold War is in full swing.
In those years, it was impossible to understand in advance the alignment of forces before the main start of the season. The athletes themselves did not like to reveal their secrets, and there was nowhere to be found for the main favorites - the Grand Prix series did not exist, the pre-season tournaments were poorly developed. It was only possible to meet in one arena at the European Championships, but Babylon and Gardner were not expected there.
However, the American couple went to the trick - they applied for the same demonstration performances in Japan as Rodnina and Zaitsev. The two main favorites of the Olympics were to ride together everywhere, share one rink, speak to the same spectators, and earn the status of the best couple in the world separately. But Babylonia and Gardner suddenly lost this psychological battle - the world champions, according to Rodnina’s memoirs, couldn’t do without mistakes at any performance.
Rodnin and Zaitsev began the competition season in Leningrad, where they confidently won the national selection with programs on the theme “Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and a medley of works by Soviet composers Georgy Sviridov and Alexandra Pakhmutova. Soon the couple went to the European Championship, where they reaffirmed - at least to the east of the Atlantic, they are the strongest both in technical and artistic terms. Rodnina’s 11th gold in the championship of the continent is still a record to which hardly anyone can even come close.
The victory at the European Championships in Stockholm was extremely important for the Soviet couple. The press accused her of performing extremely complex and forbidden elements. There was some truth in this - Rodnina and Zaitsev in those years were really unattainable for everyone in the technical component.
Under the leadership of Tatyana Tarasova, the couple experimented with supports and twists, boldly performed any jumps and outbursts, paid much attention to transitions from element to element, the number of which for an arbitrary program could reach 30 - then the rules allowed to demonstrate anything for all five minutes. But there were still restrictions, and the couple almost accidentally learned from the German judge Elfried Beyer about the new requirements for rentals in the Olympic season. When Rodnina and Zaitsev won the European Championship without any fines, all questions to them disappeared.
Soon Rodnina and Zaitsev went to the USA. There was a month left before the Games, and the skaters usually spent twenty days on themselves for acclimatization. Such a long stay on American soil slightly scared the couple - the tension due to the upcoming rivalry did not disappear anywhere and could only increase.
For training, they were given an ice rink in the tiny town of Wesley, which cordially welcomed guests from the USSR. According to Rodnina’s memoirs, even Russian plates were hung out in stores. For this reception, the couple thanked the locals with open training - at the same time, the skaters got the opportunity to enter the competitive mode faster.
There were absolutely no incidents. When moving to Lake Placid, the Soviet delegation was detained by the local police, which even the IDs could not convince that they were participants in the Olympic Games, and not offenders. In addition, no one was satisfied with the living conditions - the Olympic village turned out to be a prison for minors, in the rooms of which there were bunk beds. Rodnina got the upper shelf, and after the very first night, out of habit, she jumped to the floor from a great height and bruised her knee.
Training in the filled with Lake Placid fans was already a big test for Rodnina and Zaitseva. Not only that Babilonia and Gardner did not miss the opportunity to spy on each of their movements, but also the numerous spectators who were rooting for the Americans made them nervous. As a result, the Soviet skaters decided to halve the time they practiced on ice, which only enraged their rivals - they say that they are already too strong to conduct two training sessions a day.
The short program was scheduled for February 15, two days after the opening ceremony. The draw was favorable to the Soviet skaters, they received the latest starting numbers. But Babilonia and Gardner were supposed to go on the ice fourth. But the Americans have not shown their program. At the warm-up, Gardner fell on the very first double flip - a mandatory jump in those years. Then another fall followed, after which the skater did not rise for a long time from the ice.
When the warm-up time was over, he again tried to jump, but in vain. It became clear that Gardner was injured, which, most likely, cannot be played. Nevertheless, the Americans went on the ice, in turn, the partner went on the flip again, while the judges scored the previous pair, and fell again. After that, the Americans had to withdraw from the competition and go into the locker room. For world champions, the Olympics ended without even starting.
For Rodnina and Zaitsev, the road to gold was open. But they, as experienced athletes, tried not to celebrate ahead of time and not succumb to euphoria. Irina and Alexander still tuned for each rental in a battle-like manner, for which each judge certainly put them first.
On February 18, Rodnina and Zaitsev were the second in the strongest workout to execute the free program. The skater recalled that the fans smoking in the stands really hindered her, and the last two minutes of the performance were extremely difficult for her. However, the couple never made a single mistake in their super-complex program, and in fact the winner became obvious even before the end of the competition.
Rodnina became the Olympic champion for the third time in a row - among women, only the Norwegian Sonia Heni was capable of this even in the pre-war era of figure skating. At the same time, Rodnina became the fourth woman over the age of 30 to win Olympic gold. After her, only four more athletes succeeded.
Immediately after the performance of Marina Cherkasova and Sergey Shakhrai, who became silver medalists, the award ceremony was held. What happened on it, many remember even more than the performance of the Olympic champions. Tears streamed down Rodnina’s face while the flag of her native country rose up to the sounds of the USSR anthem. This was the last in the long list of victories in her career - soon the couple ended their careers.