What happened to Ilia Kulik?

[Karl-G]

Watching Ilia Kulik skate at the closing ceremony of the Olympics last night reminded me that he is probably the best male skater in the world; his jumps are effortless and graceful. He is still very young, must be early 20s, and he won gold just four years ago. Does anyone know why he didn't compete this year? I was really hoping to watch him.

[Guest Kenny021]

For the past 2 or 3 years, he has been touring with the Stars on Ice show (with Scott Hamilton, Kristi Yamaguchi etc.) He also was romantically involved with Ekatarina Gordieva (forgive my spelling of all these names). He is also an acomplished ballet dancer. He can be seen in the movie "Center Stage", currently playing on Cinemax. In it, he plays a ballet student at the American Ballet Company in New York. Acting not bad either.

[Guest asiabottom]

The daughter born to Ekaterina Gordeyeva was fathered by her late husband, Sergei Grinkov, and not by Ilia Kulik.

 

In my opinion, Alexei Yagudin and Viktor Petrenko are better figure skaters than Ilia. Ilia only really had one good competition and that was the 1998 Olympics. He was never a World Champion and in the Olympics he was the only skater at his peak. Head to head against Alexei Yagudin, Ilia would lose more often than win.

[Guest Thunderbuns]

He also was romantically involved with Ekatarina

>Gordieva (forgive my spelling of all these names).

 

Pardon my iggorence but what sex is Ekatarina??

 

Thunderbuns

[trilingual]

Ekaterina Gordieva is a woman. Ekaterina (actually pronounced Yekaterina) is Russian for Katherine, as in "the Great."

[Karl-G]

Thank you, but yes, I knew these. He had an affair with Katia, which resulted in a daughter. But Katia lives in Connecticut and Ilia in Southern California, and it does not look like either is moving. There is a picture of the two of them together in the latest Intl Skating Magazine.

 

But none of this would prevent him from competing if he wished.

[Guest Ant415]

Well, ice skating is just not the same since Tanya Harding isn't around. I miss her.