Tatiana Malinina

Malinina was born on 28 January 1973 in Novosibirsk, Russian SFSR.^[2] Her mother was a gymnast and her father a figure skater.^[3][4] The family moved to Tashkent, Uzbek SSR, when she was a teenager.^[1][4] In 1996, Malinina returned to Russia and lived in Yekaterinburg until moving to Dale City, Virginia, in 1998.^[1] She graduated from the Siberian Academy of Physical Culture in Omsk, Russia.^[5]

In January 2000, Malinina married Roman Skorniakov.^[5] Their son, Ilia Malinin (born in 2004), is a competitive figure skater for the United States and captured three World Figure Skating titles from 2024–2026.^[6][7][8] Their daughter, Elli Beatrice, was born in 2014.^{[citation needed]}

Malinina competed at ten consecutive World Championships beginning in 1993. She finished eighth at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.^[9]

Malinina began the 1998–1999 Grand Prix season with a 5th-place finish at the 1998 Skate America. Shortly afterward, in November 1998, Malinina and Skorniakov settled in Dale City, Virginia, drawn by better training conditions.^[4] In December, Malinina won her first Grand Prix title at the 1998 NHK Trophy and qualified for her first GPF Final. In February 1999, she competed at the inaugural Four Continents Championships and became its first ladies' gold medalist.^[4] The following month, she defeated both Maria Butyrskaya and Irina Slutskaya for the gold medal at the Grand Prix Final, held in Saint Petersburg. She finished her season by placing a career-best fourth at the World Championships.

In the 1999–2000 season, Malinina had groin and foot injuries.^[4] She finished eighteenth at the 2000 World Championships. Igor Ksenofontov, the coach of Malinina and Skorniakov, died suddenly in 1999.^[2]

Valeri Malinin coached her part-time in the 2000–2001 season.^[4] She won bronze medals at her two Grand Prix events, the 2000 Sparkassen Cup on Ice and 2000 NHK Trophy. She was fifth at the Grand Prix Final, fourth at Four Continents and thirteenth at Worlds.

Malinina and Skorniakov coached each other in the 2001–2002 season.^[2][10] She was 6th at the 2001 Sparkassen Cup on Ice and then won gold at the 2001 NHK Trophy. Malinina withdrew from the 2002 Winter Olympics after the short program due to the flu.^[2] She finished fifteenth at Worlds and then retired from competition as the couple planned to start a family.

Following her competitive figure skating career, Malinina and Skorniakov began working as coaches at the SkateQuest Skating Club in Reston, Virginia.^[11] In addition to coaching their children, their students have also included Sarah Everhardt,^[12] Audrey Shin,^[13] Lucius Kazanecki,^[14] and Sofia Bezkorovainaya.^[15]

In March 2025, Skorniakov and Malinina won the Best Coaching Award at the ISU Skating Awards.^[16]

• ISU Skating Awards 2025: Best Coach^[19]