Sergei Ponomarenko

Sergei Vladilenovich Ponomarenko (; born October 6, 1960) is a Russian former competitive ice dancer who competed for the Soviet Union and the Unified team. With skating partner and wife Marina Klimova, he is the 1992 Olympic champion, 1988 Olympic silver medalist, 1984 Olympic bronze medalist, three-time World champion, and four-time European champion.

Career Ponomarenko trained at Spartak in Moscow. Early in his career, he competed with Tatiana Durasova, becoming the 1978 and 1979 World Junior champion. with Ponomarenko, who wore a brown unitard, representing the sands of the desert and Klimova representing the wind. Kestnbaum states that their free dance "replicates classical gender positions".

Four months before the Olympics, they decided to leave coach Natalia Dubova. Ponomarenko and Klimova's costumes were both black and gray: he wore a loose shirt and trousers, with a sash around his waist, while she wore a black unitard with gray chiffon-like webbings or wings between her arms and legs and a spiderweb across her chest, and wore her red curly hair loose over her shoulders.