Ice dancer beats the odds
Sleeping Beauty on Ice will soon be on stage at the Teatro at Montecasino and principle dancer of the Imperial Ice Stars, Olga Sharutenko has just arrived in South Africa.
Sharutenko was born in Russia in 1978 and is a former competitive world champion ice dancer.
“I always had the natural ability to dance,” she said, “I started dancing when I started walking.”
Sharutenko started ballet classes at the age of five and was a star pupil. When childhood respiratory illnesses started to set her back, a doctor advised her family to get her involved in ice skating to make her lungs more resistant to the cold.
Eventually Sharutenko was asked to choose between ice skating and ballet, and despite being an exemplary ballet pupil she instead chose to skate.
“It was ironic because I was not a very good skater, “she said. “In fact my coaches kept telling me that my legs were not strong enough to do the jumps.”
Persevering through the technical obstacles she faced, Sharutenko went on to become the 1995 world junior champion with her skating partner, Dmitri Naumkin. Sharutenko and Naumkin skated together for 15 years, garnering even more accolades along the way.
Since joining the Imperial Ice Stars, Sharutenko is not as concerned about medals as she used to be. She said, “Every time the audience enjoys our performance it makes me feel good. A standing ovation is my medal.”
The Russian beauty added that she would like to inspire children to follow their passion as she did.
“It’s like the story of Sleeping Beauty, we all want our prince, our happy ending, but there are many obstacles in our path – and negative attitudes from critics – that we have to persevere through in order to get what we want, “she said.
