Uploaded March 2019 | Updated September 2026, 56 minutes ago
A very young Irina and Alexei winning their first World title at their first attempt; the first of what would be 10 for her. They leave out a lift rather obviously half way through - probably minimising the impact of altitude? - but their speed and level of difficulty really were like a revolution in the sport of pair skating and their win was unanimous with the judges.
If you watch this and then compare it to 1977 Worlds or 1978 Europeans when Rodnina was at her absolute best, you can see the massive improvements she made in her skating throughout the decade. It's not as if she stayed in the same place. But this was a definite changing of the guard, backing up their surprise European title in Garmisch (they were only second at the USSR Nationals in 1969) and handily beating both the Protopopov's and the 1969 USSR champions, Tamara Moskvina and Alexei Mishin.
The commentator is 1949 European Champion and the first lady commentator, Dr Eva Pawlik of Austria.
A very young Irina and Alexei winning their first World title at their first attempt; the first of what would be 10 for her. They leave out a lift rather obviously half way through - probably minimising the impact of altitude? - but their speed and level of difficulty really were like a revolution in the sport of pair skating and their win was unanimous with the judges.
If you watch this and then compare it to 1977 Worlds or 1978 Europeans when Rodnina was at her absolute best, you can see the massive improvements she made in her skating throughout the decade. It's not as if she stayed in the same place. But this was a definite changing of the guard, backing up their surprise European title in Garmisch (they were only second at the USSR Nationals in 1969) and handily beating both the Protopopov's and the 1969 USSR champions, Tamara Moskvina and Alexei Mishin.
The commentator is 1949 European Champion and the first lady commentator, Dr Eva Pawlik of Austria.
![Marina Cherkasova & Sergei Shakhrai - 1977 World Championship FS [QUAD TWIST]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/oIFz7aN2H6s/mqdefault.jpg "Marina Cherkasova & Sergei Shakhrai - 1977 World Championship FS [QUAD TWIST]
This has only previously been shared previously as a partial recording, so here is the complete programme including the first ever quad twist completed at a world championships. Their debut was controversial due to the profound size differene between the two and they quickly became known as a one-and-a-half pair. Their coach Stanislav Zhuk continued to pair tiny girls with fully grown men with considerable success paving teh way for the most famous of the one-and-a-half pairs, at least in their earliest days, Gordeeva & Grinkov.")
