And then, suddenly, Grinkov died of a heart attack in 1995 at age 28. Their success culminated in Olympic gold medals in 19. But as time passed and their joint career led to international championships, they fell in love and married. Throughout their training and into the start of their competitive careers, each thought of the other only as an athletic partner, partly because the four-year difference in their ages meant they had few friends in common.
Two such youngsters were Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov, paired as skaters by their teachers when they were 11 and 14, respectively.
Children as young as five or six were identified, sent to special schools and given rigorous training in the sports in which they were expected to excel. In the former Soviet Union, the sports establishment, charged with producing winners for the greater glory of the empire, had almost unlimited power over the athletically gifted.
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