In the small American town of Canton, near Detroit, one of the best figure skating experts lives and works. Marina Zueva - coach of the highest category, brought up more than one generation of champions. However, student awards are not the main distinguishing feature of her work. All her compositions are characterized by a high degree of artistry, personality and beauty.
Sports career
Marina Zueva was born in 1956. Figure skating became a part of her life in early childhood. As a skater, she spent her professional career performing in doubles. Zueva’s partner was Andrei Vitman. They took prizes in the championships of the USSR, fell into the national team. At the world championships, skaters steadily fell into the top ten. The coach of the athletes was the famous Elena Tchaikovskaya.
In the late 70s, Marina completed her sports career. Zueva was faced with the question of further activities. Being a very versatile, creative nature, she makes an unexpected decision for an athlete - she enters GITIS. In this elite educational institution that trained future film masters, she studied on the course with the legendary Mark Zakharov. But forever left in the heart of the girl figure skating. Marina Zueva worked at the same time as a choreographer in her native CSKA.
Coaching
Perhaps, the most important and beloved students of the specialist can be called Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergey Grinkov. In the eighties, she became the coach of this beautiful couple. However, this was not accompanied by a very clear story.
According to the legendary coach Stanislav Zhuk, Marina Zueva and figure skater Anna Kondrashova accused him of misbehavior in relation to young athletes. The case fell into the Central Committee of the CPSU, and this was the beginning of the persecution of the coach. As a result, a promising young couple, Gordeeva and Grinkov, were transferred from an experienced mentor to a group starting their coaching work Zueva. However, Marina herself denies this fact, saying that in those years the authority of Stanislav Zhuk was too great for her to become the cause of his persecution.
Be that as it may, Marina Zueva got her chance and started working with young skaters. She expands the scope of the usual ideas of figure skating.
In arbitrary programs, she introduces elements of the circus, ballet, and other arts. Her education as a director at GITIS also helps her find new ideas and forms. The favorite themes of Marina Zueva were always classical works, in them she drew inspiration for staging her programs.
It was to the music of the Moonlight Sonata that Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergey Grinkov won the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. They won their second Olympic gold in 1994. After that, they went into professional figure skating, but Marina Zueva continued to work with them. After the sudden death of Grinkov in 1995, Ekaterina Gordeeva continued to sing in another three years. All this time, the mentor was next to her beloved student.
Relocation to North America
In 1991, the coaching career of Marina Zueva was in a deep crisis at home. In her native CSKA there was no work, and a highly qualified specialist was left without a lot. Everything changed the job offer in North America. Marina Zueva moved to Canada, signing the first contract for a period of three years. Here she trains local couples, her son Fedor Andreev. Among her students was a Canadian loner Karin Kadevi.
In the early 2000s, she moved to Detroit. Together with another trainer from the former Union, Igor Shpilband, she organizes cooperation. He was responsible for technical elements, Marina Zueva polished an arbitrary and original program, staged a choreography.
Giving her whole life to work, she treated her beloved students as her own children. Therefore, her stellar students worked with her for more than ten years, without thinking about moving to other specialists. Among her pupils, two pairs should be distinguished: Scott Moir and Tessa Vertyu and Meryl Davis and Charlie White. These two duets occupied the upper steps of the podium at two Olympics in a row - in 2010 and 2014, alternately playing silver and gold medals.
Marina Zueva. Personal life
Sport has largely replaced the legendary trainer family life. Today Marina Zueva is not married. However, she has an adult son, about whom she always speaks with great pride. He performed in singles in figure skating, then, due to an injury, ended his career. Fedor Andreev also professionally engaged in car racing, collecting his first car almost in his garage.
After graduating from an economics college, he received an invitation to work for a Boston financial company.
To this day, Marina Zueva continues her active coaching, discovering new talents to the world every day and inventing unusually beautiful programs.