In My Sergei, Katia Gordeeva retells life with Sergei as she recalls it, from their early years together in the USSR, to their final days together in Lake Placid, NY. They were two kids, matched together when Katia was only 11 and Sergei was 15, and later became the most renowned and beloved figure skating duo in the world.
Together with their choreographer Marina Zueva and coach Stanislav Viktorovich Leonovich, they won championship after championship, including two gold medals at the 1988 and 1994 Winter Olympics.
Somewhere along the way, between rehearsals, training, and competing, the two became best friends and then lovers, holding a special and rare sort of love that few ever get to experience. They were soon married. Their love emanated through their skating, and their fans saw that the chemistry that G&G had off ice carried onto the ice as well. They wove their intense emotions for each other into an exquisite, emotional, and passionate skating style, the style that became their signature, and became even more luminous after the birth of their daughter, Daria.
Suddenly, on November 20, 1995, Sergei suffered a fatal heart attack during a training session in Lake Placid. Katia's dreams lay shattered. They had skated together for fourteen years and Sergei had been her best friend and protector. Katia was left alone, to fend for herself in a world so unfamiliar to her, and to raise three-year-old Daria.
In My Sergei, Katia recalls the storybook romance she had with Sergei...from their first kiss in a dacha in Russia, to their last days in America. It is a touching memoir of happiness, love, and knowledge. She speaks of Sergei's death and her battle with grief, and her story on how she summoned the courage to skate again...alone.
To Read the Excerpt
Translations of Russian text (in first few pages of My Sergei)
Also available as a book on tape, read by Irina Lechova (90 mins.)
Available through:
Borders Books and Music
Barnes and Noble
Waldenbooks
or your local bookstore.
