Irina slutskaya jewish religion

Early on last night, as 16-year-old Elene Gedevanishvili of Georgia zoomed full-speed toward the NBC camera, then leapt in the air to pull off a killer triple-lutz, double-toe-loop combo, the utter insanity of this sport came home to me.

Flipping upside down on a 4-inch beam is one thing, but jumping on a metal blade about 0.125 inches wide while skating backward on ice requires commitment, perhaps to a mental asylum.

Welcome to figure skating: the perfect sport for Winter Olympic rubberneckers.

Irina Slutskaya.

Coached solely by Zhanna Gromova from the age of six, the Muscovite Slutskaya, whose father is Jewish, won her first senior international figure skating.

Slutskaya was born in in Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union, the only child of a Russian mother and Russian Jewish father.

Figure skaters Sarah Hughes and Irina Slutskaya stood on the medal Her fiancé, who is half-Jewish, is "pretty much Jewish," she says.

Incidentally, bronze medal winner, Irina Slutskaya from Russia is also from a Jewish background.

It’s got vicarious thrills (the triple-triple combination few of the ladies pulled off last night), spills (the Ukrainian skater’s awkward fall), chills (well, ice), and bad, bad costumes. “That’s just hideous,” my boyfriend exclaimed when Sasha Cohen came on the ice, dressed in what looked like Joseph’s Many-Colored Coat, or a small portion of it, at least.

(Later we learned that she was supposed to be a sexy gypsy.)

Gymnastics and figure skating are the most popul