First, I should say that Kazakhstan is not a country well-known for figure skating. Unless I'm missing someone, there have been less than a dozen Kazakhstani figure skaters to even qualify for the Olympics. Even hardcore figure skating fans can probably only name a couple skaters other than Shaidorov off the top of their heads. If you can name anyone, it's probably Elizabet Tursynbaeva, who became the first woman to land a quad in a senior international competition in 2019... and Denis Ten.
Denis Ten was a Kazakhstani figure skater (of the Korean ethnic minority group of Kazakhstan) who started skating at an outdoor rink and trained in a shopping mall for much of his childhood. He is best known for being the Sochi 2014 bronze medalist, where he had a shocking comeback from his 9th place short program with a 3rd place free skate. It was the first time a Kazakhstani skater had EVER won an Olympic medal for figure skating, and because of that, he is widely credited for popularizing the sport in Kazakhstan.
And he had a very successful career outside of Sochi! (Although he was unfortunately injured for his next Olympic season and placed 27th at Pyeongchang.) He was on the Worlds podium twice, won Four Continents, and always had a good showing at Grand Prix events. You can look at his many accolades here. He battled injuries for many seasons, but he still had an incredible career.
As you might imagine, it’s hard to become a professional figure skater in a country with so few ice skating rinks that your best skaters practice in malls. Figure skating is a sport for the wealthy. It’s expensive to get started and it’s even more expensive to get professional training. And even if you have the money, if you live somewhere without good rinks and good coaches... well, that's it for a lot of skaters. People from countries with small skating federations are simply at a disadvantage due to a lack of resources. And that's not even touching the politics of judging and Grand Prix assignments and Worlds slots, etc etc.
Ten was lucky enough to be scouted by a Russian coach after winning a competition in Omsk, Russia in 2003 when he was 10 years old (I hope he flew because that’s a 20+ hour drive from his hometown of Almaty). He was invited to that coach’s training camp and later invited to join the club full-time. In 2013 he moved to California to train under a USAmerican coach. Training internationally is common for skaters from small federations, and personally I think it’s a bit of a tragedy. Like many skaters, Ten was in a position to represent his country on the international stage at the cost of being able to live there year-round.
But Kazakhstan was always in Denis Ten’s heart. After his historic 2014 Olympic bronze win, he organized an unprecedented ice show in his home country featuring 12 (TWELVE!) Olympic medalists from all over the world, selling out two different cities in a country with virtually no cultural history of figure skating. The money from the Astana show benefitted a child with cancer, while the money from the Almaty shows went to promoting figure skating in Kazakhstan. And he continued working to develop the popularity of winter sports in the country for years afterwards, serving as one of the major advocates for Almaty’s 2022 Olympic bid.
I wish we could say that he was still advocating for the sport today, but in July of 2018, Denis Ten was tragically murdered during an attempted carjacking. He was 25 years old.
It is not an exaggeration to say that Denis Ten changed Kazakhstani skating forever. Part of his inspiration for bringing so many international skaters to Kazakhstan for his ice show was that he knew many skaters who were curious about the country, because it wasn’t one where they ever competed. Now the Denis Ten Memorial Cup has been held annually in Almaty since 2019, bringing skaters from around the world to Kazakhstan.
And you would be hard-pressed to find any young Kazakhstani skater who doesn’t look up to Denis Ten, Mikhail Shaidorov included. Ten isn’t Mikhail Shaidorov’s only inspiration (like all of us, he’s a big Yuzuru fan). But he does list Ten as one of his major influences, and in 2024 he said, “Denis Ten told the world that Kazakhstan has figure skating. Now I can remind people of that." (Please excuse the machine translation, as I do not speak Russian.)
And when Shaidorov talks about how proud he is to be a Kazakhstani skater, he talks about how he got his start in the very same shopping mall rink where Denis Ten once trained. And while he frequently attends international training camps, he mainly lives and trains in his hometown of Almaty.
Shaidorov’s win today is a historic first in many ways. It is the first gold medal Kazakhstan has ever won for figure skating. It is their first Winter Olympics gold medal since Vladimir Smirnov won for cross-country skiing in 1994. But it is also the continuation of a Kazakhstani skating legacy begun by Denis Ten.
And I like to think that Denis would be proud.
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