"I learn something every time I see them skate, even now," said Dick Button, gold medalist in men's singles in 1948 and 1952 and a longtime television commentator on the sport. "The basic movements and basic positions are all there. They take and break down every single element that they do and follow through on the classical style that they've been so good at, to their ultimate destination."
Four hours a day nearly every day, Oleg effortlessly lifts Ludmila off her feet and sets her down gracefully as they practice and practice and practice.
"We dedicate our life for skating," said Ludmila, who weighs about 100 pounds and can still do the splits. "Everything revolves around skating."
"There is no limit to how old you can be. Figure skating is a long-lasting sport, it prolongs life," said Oleg, whose mother was a ballerina and helped him survive the brutal siege of Leningrad, which claimed more than 1 million lives during World War II. "Now, I feel young. I don't feel old. We are like seagulls. While we can move our wings, we will fly."
And fly they do. For five months a year, the Protopopovs train here on the ice sheet that coach Herb Brooks and the US Olympic hockey team made famous in 1980. They also spend five weeks windsurfing and rollerblading in Hawaii, and live the rest of the time in their adopted home of Switzerland.
The Protopopovs first came to Lake Placid nine years ago at the recommendation of a Russian friend. They skated in an exhibition and were so well received that they've returned every year.
"They are in the most wonderful physical condition I've seen. People who come to watch them skate are amazed. They don't believe it," said 79-year-old Barbara Kelly, who has provided the Protopopovs with an apartment in Lake Placid for five years. "They have a style that's never been matched."
The Protopopovs' journey began in 1954, when they met by chance at a coaches' seminar on a small rink in Moscow.
"They needed demonstrators," said Oleg, who was in the Navy at the time. "We had no intention to skate in pairs. It was just an accident."
