Russia's First Gold Medalist

Russia’s First Gold Medalist 

One hundred years ago, at the fourth modern Olympics, held in London in 1908, Russia sent a team of six athletes; three of them returned with medals. Nikolai Panin was the only one to bring home a gold medal – Russia’s first ever. Panin won it in “special figures” figure skating (London was the first Olympics to include a non-summer sport). Nikolai Orlov and Alexei Petrov returned with silver medals in wrestling.

Yet Panin was not Panin. He was Kolomenkin. 

Nikolai Alexandrovich Kolomenkin was a high-ranking financial inspector outside St. Petersburg, and at that time it was forbidden for government officials to take part in sporting competitions. So Kolomenkin adopted the pseudonym of Panin, under which name he participated in numerous sporting competitions (he was also an expert marksman). In 1901 he won his first gold medal, for best Russian figure skater. He won the Russian title five times in figure skating and 12 times in pistol shooting.

The “special figures” event Panin won in London involved skaters “drawing” figures on ice as they skated. According to the Olympic committee: “Panin surpassed his rivals in both the complexity of the special figures and the ease with which he performed them with. He ‘carved’ on the ice a whole series of faultless drawings with nearly mathematical precision.” No surprise, perhaps, since the 36-year-old Voronezh native had graduated with honors from the Physics and Mathematics Department at St. Petersburg University.

Panin-Kolomenkin’s sporting secret was revealed when he returned home as a hero. Yet his bosses were not amused. They threatened to send him to some distant Russian settlement if he continued his sporting career. The champion surrendered. 

After the 1917 Revolution, he turned to coaching – both in shooting and in figure skating. He established Russia’s first-ever figure skating school (which today is named for him). Back in 1910, he had published a book on the theory and practice of figure skating; it soon became the handbook for many generations of figure skaters. Even today, coaches use it to explain the basics of figure skating to their students. 

During World War II, Panin-Kolomenkin served as an instructor, training fighters in Soviet partisan units. After the war, he continued to teach figure skating at the Lesgaft Institute of Physical Culture and Sport. He passed away in 1956, having lived long enough to witness the second-ever Russian Olympic gold medal: won in 1952 by Nina Romashkova, for the discus throw (another 21 Soviet athletes won gold at these, the first Olympic games the USSR attended).       – N.D.