My Sergei (26 page)

Fooling around with Stars on Ice friends in Lake Placid only days before sergei’s death. Left to right: me, Scott Hamilton, Kristi Yamaguchi, a friend of Rosalynn Sumners’s, Sergei,Christine Hough, and Rosalynn Sumners.

Skating Together:

Dino Ricci

Marina created the Rodin number for us in 1994, based on the poses in Rodin’s sculptures. It was my favorite exhibition piece.

Paul Reid

“The Man I Love” skated during our Stars on Ice Tour 1994/95.

Irene Ersek

In December 1994, we won the World Professional Championships for the third time, skating a Gershwin profram as our technical number.

Many Competitions, Many Momories

Irene Ersek

We added our “Porgy and Bess” program shortly after the 1994 Olympics.

Irene Ersek

“Out of Tears” skated to the Rolling Stones was one of our numbers in the 1994/95 stars on Ice tour.

Heinz Kluetmeier

In summer 1995, we were working on this new program, but never got a chance to skate it.

“Celebration of a Life”

February 27, 1996

Heinz Kluetmeier

Daria and me with all our wonderful friends who came together to celebrate Sergei’s life.

Heinz Kluetmeier

As I skated to Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 , I sensed Sergei’s presence in my heart, my soul, everywhere.

Far right: By the time the tribute reached its finale, I felt relaxed and happy, even joyful.

Heinz Kluetmeier

Yuri Dojc

One of the last photographs taken of the three of us, November 1995.

Christopher Little

With Daria, 1996. She is always smiling for me.

B
efore we left for Lillehammer, Sergei and I went to talk
to Father Nikolai. I had been doing this before all our competitions, but this was the first time that Sergei had come. I
didn’t push him. I just said, “I want to see Nikolai, do you want to come with me?”

What I liked about talking to Father Nikolai was that you never had to bring words or questions with you. Father Nikolai always
found something to say. This time he said, “I just want to tell you I’m going to pray that God gives you strength to get through
the competition, and that you should thank God for giving you the chance to go. You should thank Him for giving you something
you both love to do, together. I can’t pray for you to win. You have to look to each other for this. You can’t ask God to
please help you win. Better to ask that He give you a chance to be happy when you skate. And remember your Daria, that you’re
skating for her. And remember your parents, too.”

It was very enlightening for us. When you train as hard as we’d been training, when you’re as focused on a goal as we’d been,
you sometimes forget the people around you. You even forget there’s a world around you, because you’re thinking about the
gold medal all the time. Father Nikolai was reminding us that God doesn’t care about gold medals, that the very idea of beating
someone in competition doesn’t go very well with religious thinking. His reminder to remember my family helped me, just as
this thought had helped me in my first Olympics at Calgary.