Alexandra Trusova
Alexandra "Sasha" Vyacheslavovna Ignatova is a Russian figure skater. She is the 2022 Olympic silver medalist, the 2021 World bronze medalist, a European silver and bronze medalist, the 2019 Grand Prix Final bronze medalist, the 2019 Skate Canada champion, the 2019 Rostelecom Cup champion, the 2019 CS Ondrej Nepela Memorial champion, the 2021 U.S. Classic champion, and the 2021 Skate America champion. Domestically, she is the 2022 Russian national champion, the 2019 silver medalist, and the 2020 and 2021 bronze medalist. At the junior level, she has been a two-time Junior World Champion, the 2018 Junior Grand Prix Final champion, the 2019 Junior Grand Prix Final silver medalist, a four-time champion on the Junior Grand Prix series, and a two-time Russian Junior national champion.
Trusova is credited for leading the ladies figure skating technical revolution and being the new face of women's figure skating by becoming the first female skater to land the quad Lutz, quad flip, and quad toe loop jumps; the second to land the quad Salchow ; and the first to land two and three ratified quads in a free skate, achieved at the 2018 Junior World Championships and the 2019 Nepela Trophy, respectively. She is also the first woman to land a quad at the Olympic Winter Games, and the first woman to land four and five quads in a free skate, achieved at the Beijing Winter Olympics 2022. She currently holds four Guinness World Records, the fourth in recognition of her landed quadruple flip at the 2019 ISU Grand Prix Final. Her technical score of 92.35 points in the free skate at the 2018 Junior Worlds was the highest recorded in women's singles skating at the junior and senior level until the GOE system was changed at the end of 2017–18 season.
Additionally, Trusova is recognized as the youngest woman to become a World Junior champion and a Junior Grand Prix Final champion following her wins at the 2018 World Junior Championship and the 2018 Junior Grand Prix Final at the age of 13. At the 2018 JGP Lithuania, she became the first female skater to land a quadruple jump in combination after performing a quad toe loop and triple toe loop. At the 2018 JGP Armenia, she became the first female skater to land a quad Lutz jump in international competition. She is also the first female skater to backload a quad in combination, which she accomplished at Skate Canada 2019, landing a quad Toe in combination with a triple Salchow. Trusova currently has the second highest free skating score of any female skater, with 177.13. Trusova is the first and only female skater competing with four different quadruple jumps—toe loop, Salchow, flip and Lutz—and the first to score above 100 points in technical elements, with 100.20 in the free skate at 2019 Skate Canada and an Olympic record 106.16 at the 2022 Olympics.
Personal life
Sasha Trusova was born on 23 June 2004 in Ryazan. She has two younger brothers, Egor and Ivan. A passionate dog lover, Trusova owns seven dogs: a chihuahua named Tina, who often accompanied her to competitions; a husky named Jack; a miniature royal poodle named Lana, which she received at the Rostelecom Cup in recognition of her victory at the 2019 World Junior Figure Skating Championships and for landing her first triple Axel in practice; a basenji named Alita; a second miniature poodle named Cruella ; a Bichon Frisé named Selma; and most recently, a toy poodle named Smoke. Both Ella and Selma were gifts from fans in China.A short biography detailing her career throughout her teenage years was published in Russian under the title Alexandra Trusova. The Girl Who Fights Gravity: And Changes the World of Women’s Figure Skating, with an English translation released in March 2021.
Trusova was in a relationship with Mark Kondratiuk, the 2022 Beijing Olympic team event bronze medalist, from May 2022 until the summer of 2023. In late 2023, she began a relationship with fellow Russian figure skater Makar Ignatov. On June 17, 2024, Trusova and Ignatov announced their engagement, and they were married on August 17, 2024, after which Trusova adopted the surname Ignatova.
On March 22, 2025, the couple publicly announced via Instagram that they were expecting their first child. On August 6, 2025, the couple welcomed their first child, a son named Mikhail. Trusova started recovery shortly after giving birth, and began regaining her jumps, currently working on triple jumps in combinations.
Career
Early career
Trusova began learning to skate in 2008 at the age of four. She initially trained in Ryazan under the guidance of Olga Shevtsova before relocating to Moscow in 2015, where she was coached by Alexander Volkov. In 2016, she joined the Khrustalny rink, where she began training under Eteri Tutberidze and Sergei Dudakov.Trusova placed fourth at the 2017 Russian Junior Championships, finishing sixth in the short program and fourth in the free skate.
2017–2018 season: Junior international debut
Trusova debuted internationally in August 2017 at a 2017–18 ISU Junior Grand Prix competition in Brisbane, Australia. Ranked first in both the short program and free skate, she won the gold medal ahead of teammate Anastasia Gulyakova. She landed an underrotated quadruple Salchow in her free program. Her total score of 197.69 points was the third highest ever achieved by a women's single skater on the junior level at the time, behind only Alina Zagitova and Marin Honda. She then finished first at JGP Belarus and qualified for the Junior Grand Prix Final.At the 2017–18 Junior Grand Prix Final, Trusova scored 73.25 points, breaking the junior women's world record for the short program. In the free skate, she scored 132.36 points, approximately half a point less than what her teammate and training partner, Alena Kostornaia, scored. However, Trusova won the overall competition due to her 1.5 point-lead from the short program. In January 2018, Trusova won the gold medal at the 2018 Russian Junior Championships after placing first in the short program and third in the free skate. She again narrowly beat her training partner and silver medalist, Kostornaia, by a margin of 0.6 points.
In March 2018, Trusova competed at the 2018 Junior Worlds, where she won the gold medal after placing first in both the short program and free skate. Her free skate score of 153.49 points set the new world record for the junior free program, and her total score of 225.52 points was also the new world record for the junior combined total score. At the competition, Trusova became the first female skater to land the quad toe loop, the second to land the quad Salchow behind Miki Ando, and the first to land two ratified quads in a free skate. Her quadruple jump was the first ratified in 16 years since Ando's in 2002. Trusova's technical score of 92.35 points in the free skate at the 2018 Junior World was the highest recorded in women's figure skating at the time at both the junior and senior levels. Her total score of 225.52 would have placed her first in the senior women's World Championships that year as well, despite significantly lower program component scores and the absence of a choreographic sequence. This is the first time anything like this has ever happened with someone from juniors.
2018–2019 season: Second Junior World title
Trusova began the season by competing in the 2018 Junior Grand Prix series. At her first Junior Grand Prix event of the season, she won the gold medal in Kaunas, Lithuania. She ranked first in both the short program and the free skate and won the gold medal by 30 points over silver medalist Kim Ye-lim. As of September 2018, her scores at the competition are the highest achieved in an international junior women's competition. There, Trusova became the first female skater to land a quad in combination—a quad toe loop and triple toe loop that received 16.14 points. She also became the first female skater to attempt a quad Lutz in a competition, which she landed but not ratified due to under rotation.At her second Junior Grand Prix event of the season, she won another gold medal in Yerevan, Armenia. Again she placed first in both the short program and free skate, winning the gold medal by 33 points over silver medalist and teammate Alena Kanysheva. Trusova surpassed her own free skate world record score and became the first female skater to land a quadruple Lutz in international competition. With two Junior Grand Prix gold medals, Trusova qualified for the 2018–19 Junior Grand Prix Final.
At the JGP Final, she won the silver medal after placing second in both the short program and free skate. This time, she was outscored by Kostornaia by approximately 2.5 points. In the free skate, Trusova landed a clean quad toe loop but stepped out of her first quad Lutz and fell on a second, underrotated quad Lutz.
At the 2019 Russian Championships, Trusova placed second in the short program and second in the free skate, winning the silver medal overall. In the free skate, she landed a quad Lutz but fell on an underrotated quad toe loop, finishing behind Shcherbakova by 0.07 points. Trusova stated after the competition that she planned to work more on her quad jumps before the 2019 Junior World Championships.
Trusova successfully defended her Junior World title at the 2019 World Junior Championships, placing second in the short program to Shcherbakova and winning the free skate.
2019–2020 season: Senior international debut
Trusova made her international senior debut at the 2019 CS Ondrej Nepela Memorial, where she won the gold medal and set several new world records. In the free skate, she became the first woman ever to land three quadruple jumps when she landed a quad Lutz and two quad toe loops, the second of which was in combination. She set a new free skate record of 163.78 points and a new combined total record of 238.69 points. Her technical element score of 98.34 points in the free skate was also the new world record. She earned 14.72 points for her quadruple Lutz, a new record for the highest valued single jump by a female skater which was phenomenal.On October 5, Trusova skated in the team competition at the Japan Open, where she won the event with four quads—a quad Salchow, quad Lutz, quad toe-triple toe combination, and quad toe-Euler-triple Salchow combination—scoring over 160 points. Since it was not an official ISU competition, her historic number of quads landed was not officially recognized as the first in international competition.
Trusova made her ISU Grand Prix debut at the 2019 Skate Canada International, where she won the gold medal after placing third in the short program and first in the free skate. At the competition, having performed quad toe loop-triple toe loop and quad toe loop-Euler-triple Salchow combinations, she became the first woman to land two quad-triple jump combinations in one program at an ISU-sanctioned international competition. She also became the first woman to land a quad-triple jump combination in the second half of the free skate. At the same competition, she set the new free skating record of 166.62 points and a new combined total record of 241.02 points. Her TES of 100.20 points in the free skate was also the new world record. At her second Grand Prix, the 2019 Rostelecom Cup, Trusova placed second in the short program behind Evgenia Medvedeva. She placed first in the free skate despite falling on her opening quad Salchow attempt and another fall on a triple combination and won her second Grand Prix gold medal.
File:Trusova,_Hanyu_-_2019_Skate_Canada.jpg|thumb|right|Alexandra Trusova with Yuzuru Hanyu at the 2019 Skate Canada.
Trusova's results qualified her for the Grand Prix Final in Torino. Skating in the short program, Trusova opted to attempt the triple Axel in competition for the first time but underrotated it and fell. Consequently, she placed fifth in the segment, fourteen points behind first-place Kostornaia. Trusova said that the decision to introduce the triple Axel had been taken in light of its being landed "more or less consistently" in practices in the preceding week and remarked, "I like to risk, and without risking, I wouldn't achieve what I have by this moment". In the free skate, Trusova attempted the quad flip in competition for the first time, landing it cleanly, alongside a quad Lutz and a quad toe loop, but doubled an intended quad Salchow and fell on a second quad toe attempt. She became the first female skater to attempt five quads in a free skate and the first to attempt four different types of quads. Third in the free, won the bronze medal behind Kostornaia and Shcherbakova.
At the 2020 Russian Championships, Trusova placed third in the short program, opting not to attempt the triple Axel. The free skate proved a struggle, with two falls on her quad Lutz and quad flip attempts and doubling on her first attempted quad toe loop. She eventually landed her second quad toe attempt, as well as her remaining triple jumps, and remained in third place. She was "not pleased" with the performance and said she hoped to master the quad loop by the end of the season.
Competing at the 2020 European Championships, Trusova doubled and turned out of a planned triple Axel. She scored 74.95 points and placed third in that segment behind Kostornaia and Shcherbakova. In the free skate, she fell on two planned quads but landed her quad toe-triple toe combination successfully. She placed third overall behind her two teammates and won the bronze medal. Trusova was also assigned to compete at the 2020 World Championships in Montreal, which were cancelled as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On May 6, 2020, it was announced by Russian media outlets Nevasport and Sport24 that Trusova had decided to part ways with coach Eteri Tutberidze in favor of joining Evgeni Plushenko's academy. Trusova was joined in the departure by coach Sergei Rozanov, as well as novice training-mates Veronika and Alyona Zhilina. According to Sport24, Trusova chose to leave the Tutberidze group due to lack of attention from Tutberidze herself during the months following the cancellation of the World Championships, as well as her overall dissatisfaction with her position in the training group.