Dina Khusnutdinova's first coach spoke about how the figure skater took her first steps on the ice in Zainsk.

      The sporting path of rising figure skating star Dina Khusnutdinova began in Zainsk

      Every star performance has its own backstory, rooted in the first days on the ice. These stories are kept by the first coaches – the people who remember champions as small, timid girls standing unsteadily on skates. At the origins of Dina Khusnutdinova’s athletic path stood coach Yulia Alchinova (Konshina).

      Their story began at the Yashlek ice palace in 2013, where Yulia Konshina went to work after moving to Zainsk. There the novice coach received her first group. They were little children taking their very first steps on skates, and among them was Dina.

      “For me it was my first intake, my very first children. I remember how Dina would stride briskly across the ice on straight legs — she wasn’t skating, she was walking. I had to work hard to teach her to bend her knees and skate properly,” the coach recalls.

      The girl from the village of Aksarino, who spoke Tatar, called her mentor “apa,” and Yulia, who had just moved from Yekaterinburg, understood nothing. But there was a language that needed no translation — the language of Dina’s burning eyes.

      “At training sessions Dina’s eyes always shone. She trained with enormous desire and absorbed new information like a sponge,” says Yulia Alchinova. According to the coach, Dina combined an astonishing mix of modesty, incredible industriousness and persistence.

      “She herself wanted to learn difficult elements, to achieve set goals. Even when something was very hard for her, she didn’t give up. Even then she showed good speed, spins, jump height, but most importantly — the desire to train. That is what allows you to succeed. The support of her parents, which she had then and still has now, also plays a significant role,” the coach notes with pride.

      She remembers the skater’s first failures and first victories. At the very first district competitions little Dina was constantly tripping on the teeth of her skates and falling. And then she began to win at regional competitions. Before the coach’s eyes, with each victory the little skater grew more self-confident, becoming surer not only on the ice but in life.

      And years later Yulia Alchinova, like thousands of spectators across Russia, watched her pupil’s performance at the senior Russian Grand Prix in figure skating with bated breath.

      “It was very nerve-wracking, I kept my fingers crossed for her, even closed my eyes at some moments, thinking: ‘Come on, come on, do it!’ I felt proud that I knew this girl, that I had coached her, prepared her for programs, and sent her out to compete,” the coach admits.

      Yulia Alchinova gratefully acknowledges the work of other coaches, especially Nadezhda Zayakina in Kazan, but she knows that the very foundation — the love of figure skating, self-discipline and the ability to work, work and work some more in training — was laid together with Dina in Zainsk at the very beginning.

      And today her main wish for that girl who once called her “apa” is simple and sincere: “I wish her health, so that she does not suffer from injuries. I would like to see her on the podium at the Russian Championships.” Photo by the author Irina Smirnova

      More news about the event:

      Dina Khusnutdinova’s first coach talked about how the skater took her first steps on the ice in Zainsk

      The sporting path of rising figure skating star Dina Khusnutdinova began in Zainsk

      Every star performance has its own backstory, rooted in the first days on the ice. 10:17 23.11.2025 Zainsk-Inform - Zainsk

      Dina Khusnutdinova’s first coach talked about how the skater took her first steps on the ice in Zainsk

      The sporting path of rising figure skating star Dina Khusnutdinova began in Zainsk

      Every star performance has its own backstory, rooted in the first days on the ice. 09:36 23.11.2025 Novosti Zainska - Zainsk

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