Petrenko, Arakawa highlight World Figure Skating Hall class
Olympic champions Viktor Petrenko, Shizuka Arakawa, and Elena Valova and Oleg Vasiliev have been elected to the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame.
Also chosen are two-time world champion ice dance team Irina Moiseeva and Andrei Minenkov, coach Bin Yao and choreographer Sandra Bezic.
Petrenko competed for Ukraine, the Soviet Union and the Unified Team, earning the 1992 Olympic title for the Unified Team and the 1988 Olympic bronze medal for the Soviet Union. He also won the 1992 world title.
In 2006, Arakawa became the first Japanese figure skater to win an Olympic gold medal and was the only Japanese medalist in any sport at the Turin Games. She won the 2004 world championship.
Valova and Vasiliev were the 1984 Olympic champions and 1988 silver medalists and won three world titles.
Two-time world champions (1975, `77) Moiseeva and Minenkov earned eight world medals. Yao was the driving force behind powerful Chinese pairs for more than 30 years.
Bezic is best known as a competitive and show choreographer and television analyst. She choreographed competitive programs for Olympic champions Brian Boitano (1988), Kristi Yamaguchi (1992) and Tara Lipinski (1998).
