27 years ago, when I met Oleg Protopopov, a two-time Olympic champion at the European Championships in Dortmund, he seriously entertained the idea of competing at the Nagano Olympics.
“In Switzerland, there is practically no pair skating, which means that a place in the team is almost vacant.
And the International Skating Union has not yet come up with rules that limit the age of athletes.
I'm not saying that we will perform.
But we are getting ready.
Figure skating is not boring yet, and Mila and I just like to be in shape.
Both weigh the same as 30 years ago.
We do all the elements that we did then, we learn jumps.
The maximum goal always disciplines, helps to preserve a young psyche.
In addition, I have always been inclined to believe that it is better to die on ice than in a nursing home, ”Protopopov was dumbfounded.
Frankly, then I took the words of the aging skater as nonsense, but at the time of our meeting, Lyudmila and Oleg were barely over 60. Why not make such plans if now, having exchanged the fifth decade, Zoe Jones, the mother of three adult children, is playing for England?
[And not just performing, but collecting medals like never before.] Just because no one has done this before?
A weak argument for Protopopov, or rather, generally useless.
Someone even now shudders from internal mental discomfort: is it not a circus, put on skates and go on ice when you are over 80?
One well-known coach, whose sports career began just during the reign of the Protopopovs, even once told me: they say, at an age when it is more logical to tell how a family lives, what worries children have and how grandchildren grow up, somehow wildly ask colleagues how you look on the ice.
But the Protopopovs, in spite of everything, continued to skate.
They painted their training life in as much detail as they did when they were preparing for the Olympics, organized training camps in Hawaii and the USA, took jumping advice from outstanding specialists, and took part in all kinds of shows.
The generator of this indefatigable life was Oleg, who claimed during meetings that it is possible to fully live with the right attitude towards oneself up to 160 years, and that this is exactly what he intends to realize.
And, of course, plans to continue skating.
One could argue as much as one likes how reasonable a person is who declares such things out loud, but Protopopov's endless devotion to a once chosen cause could not but arouse admiration and respect.
Moreover, I wanted to bow before the great master.
... Mila left this world in September 2017, a little short of her 82nd birthday and leaving her husband the most unbearable of all possible burdens - to live alone.
Exactly a year later, in Lake Placid, as part of the Evening with Champions show, at the age of 86 (!!!), Oleg first went on the ice with a single dance - in memory of his wife.
And today he turns 90. And it is infinitely a pity that on this day Oleg will not come to the ice edge, carefully squeezing Mila's thin fingers in his hand, and will not slide silently, as he did for many years starting from that very seminar in 1954, when , being a sailor of the Baltic Fleet, met his only love in Moscow.
Happy birthday, Oleg Alekseevich!