Oleg Protopopov passed away.
Oleg Protopopov won Olympic gold twice with his partner and wife Lyudmila Belousova. PDO
Russian figure skating legend Oleg Protopopov is dead. The matter was reported by, among others, a Russian Match.tv mixed NBC Sports.
Protopopov died at the age of 91.
He won Olympic gold in pair skating with his partner Lyudmila Belousova in 1964 in Innsbruck and in 1968 in Grenoble. The pair won the World Championship gold four more times in a row and the European Championship gold four times.
Protopopov and Belousova married in 1957. They remained together until Belousova’s death. Belousova passed away in 2017.
They defected to Switzerland in 1979 and applied for asylum in the country. They became Swiss citizens in 1995. They spent summers in Lake Placid, New York. There, the couple performed in non-competitive events.