Maria Mukhortova is a Russian figure skating athlete . Best known as a former partner of Olympic champion Maxim Trankov.
Childhood
Mukhortova Maria Vladimirovna was born in the glorious city of Leningrad in 1985. But she did not live there long. when the baby was two years old, her parents moved to Lipetsk (the father of the family came from there).
Little Masha accidentally fell into figure skating. Initially, the parents planned to give the girl to the water sport - ski jumping. But soon the coach told Mukhortov that Masha was too short for these classes.
Masha’s mom accidentally found out about recruiting a figure skating group, who somewhere saw an ad. After conferring, parents decided: to be a sport. Indeed, in skating on ice, beautiful and miniature young ladies have always been valued. By the way, the Mukhortovs did not plan for their daughter a great sports career, they gave her to figure skating in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle.
Carier start. Juniors
Maria Mukhortova immediately showed that she had a steel character, she was a very talented and stubborn student. From the age of six, little Masha trained with Nina Vladimirovna Bystryakova, then moved to the group with coach Sukhareva. It was Galina Pavlovna who examined the promising athlete in the girl and took her to St. Petersburg.
Masha was thirteen at that time. She fell into the hands of a wonderful coach Natalya Pavlova. From a single woman, Maria went into doubles, where Yegor Golovkin became her partner. A couple of years later he was replaced by Pavel Lebedev. It was with this young man that Masha’s first sports successes were associated. Together they got into the national team, went to the stages of the Grand Prix (junior), where they steadily fell into the top ten.
But soon in a pair of Masha and Pasha there was a discord. Lebedev found a new partner, with whom he played until 2006 in amateur sports. And Masha was still in search.
Takeoff
Maxim Trankov trained in the Velikovs group. He was paired with Natalya Shestakova, but the guys showed average results. Then it was decided to pair Maxim with Maria. It happened in 2003. And after one competitive season, they became world junior champions. It was a success!
Maxim Trankov and Maria Mukhortova had a great time this season, winning all the tournaments and taking a leading position in the junior ranking.
But, unfortunately, the age of the guys said that it was time to move into adulthood. This was not easy for them. Either there were too many ambitions, or fears, or uncertainties, but they very often began to conflict with each other, to disagree in working moments. Their coaches are constantly changing. The Velikovs, and T. Moskvina, and A. Dmitriev worked with the couple .
Before the olympic season
Masha and Maxim in 2006 took a break in their career for a couple of months to reflect on the situation. In the end, they managed to come to an agreement, and they again paired up. The guys have a new coach - Oleg Vasiliev.
And immediately the first victories came:
- championship of Russia 2007;
- Russian Championship 2008 (silver);
- European Championship 2008 (silver).
But the couple was not lucky with the World Championships, either because of a partner injury, or because of torn elements. But the guys did not despair, but continued to compete diligently. Their main rivals in Russia were Kawaguchi / Smirnov, in the world - Savchenko / Shelkov.
In 2009, they successfully performed at Skate America (bronze) and reached the final of the Grand Prix in figure skating. Unfortunately, the poisoning of Trankov prevented taking a high place. He felt bad during an arbitrary program, as a result of which it failed.
A couple of Mukhortov / Trankov simply pursued failure. At the Russian championship in the same year, they confidently led, but tore off several elements in an arbitrary, for which they received only silver. The same thing happened at the European and World Championships.
Olympic season
The 2009-2010 season for the couple began successfully. They won the Grand Prix stage. But then everything again went on the thumb. Falls in the main competitive championships and, as a result, the lack of moral preparation for the main competitions of the four-year period.
During the short program, Maxim fell again during the execution of the element, while Maria performed her jumps cleanly. But, apparently, having been infected by a partner, in the end she also smeared several elements. The result is seventh place and complete disappointment.
After these competitions, it became clear to everyone that the promising couple could not cope with the burden of responsibility. Yes, they themselves knew this, but continued their joint performances. The boiling point was the 2010 World Cup, where Trankov fell during the ejection of a partner. After that, he stated that their pair no longer existed.
Maria Mukhortova was left alone again. However, not for long. Soon Vasiliev invited a Frenchman Jerome Blanchard to speak with a girl. But their pair was unsuccessful, they could not even get into the top ten in the Russian championship. The Frenchman left home, leaving a career. And the Russian skater began to look for a partner again. But she did not succeed.
Present
Masha completed her amateur career in 2011. Since then, she has not quit figure skating, but continues to delight her fans by skating in the show "Russian Ice Stars". She tours around the world with the programs "Cinderella on Ice", "Snow White", "Peter Pan" and others.
Maria Mukhortova, whose personal life is filled only with work, never regretted that she had completed her amateur career. Only the dream of Olympic gold remained a dream ...