Ksenia Stolbova is one of the brightest athletes in pair figure skating. The black-eyed miniature brunette has a sharp explosive disposition and a real champion character, which allows her to stay at the top of the rating together with Fedor Klimov over the past five years.
The beginning of the way
Ksenia Stolbova was born in St. Petersburg in 1992. She started figure skating at the age of 6, and in the first years, the coaches tried to make her a loner. However, by the age of 14, she decided to retrain and try her hand at pair skating.
The first partner of Ksenia Stolbova was the Ukrainian Arthur Minchuk, with whom they achieved some success in the junior competitions. In 2009, her coach Lyudmila Velikova put her in a pair with Fedor Klimov, who rides with her to this day.
The guys could not win serious trophies at the junior level, always being the second or third in the largest tournaments. However, they painlessly switched to adult figure skating, in the first season they won silver medals at the Russian Championship.
Since the two strongest couples of the country did not participate in this tournament, Ksenia Stolbova and her partner went to the European Championship only as substitutes, however, the pair Kavaguchi-Smirnov withdrew from the tournament and yesterday's juniors got their chance. They took advantage of them and took the bronze medals of the continental championship.
Olympic champion
By 2014, Ksenia Stolbova managed to pull a partner along, and they earned the title of the second pair of the country, having won a ticket to the Olympic Games in Sochi. Here they played in the team tournament and made their great contribution to the final victory of the national team. Thus, in two years, a native of St. Petersburg has gone from an unknown debutant to an Olympic champion. Photos of Ksenia Stolbova flickered on the covers of leading sports publications.
A few days later, the guys consolidated their success by winning silver in the individual championship among sports pairs, losing only to Tatyana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov.
After the first couple of the country took a break in her amateur career, Ksenia Stolbova, along with Fedor Klimov, got a chance to dominate the world figure skating. However, in the following seasons, the guys were harassed by constant setbacks. At the peak of his form, Fedor Klimov received an unfortunate injury, which disabled him for four months.
Before the skaters returned to the ice, a leg injury overtook Ksenia Stolbova. Returning to the system, she began to stubbornly prepare for the Olympic Games in Pyeongchang. On the way to the main tournament, together with her partner, she became the silver medalist of the European Championship in Moscow.
However, by the decision of the IOC, the girl was suspended from participation in the Olympics. Ksenia and Fedor have already announced that the 2018 World Cup will be their last tournament.
