Benjamin Agosto

Benjamin Alexandro Agosto ( born January 15, 1982 in Chicago, Illinois ) is an American former figure skater, who started ice dancing.

Career

Agosto is the son of a Puerto Rican father and a Jewish mother with roots from Romania and Russia. He began at the age of six years with the ice skating after he had been given on his birthday a pair of skates. From 1995 to 1998, he started in ice dancing with Katharine Hill. In 1998 he moved from Chicago to Detroit to train with Igor Schpilband can. This led him to his new Eistanzpartnerin Tanith Belbin. The pair started for the club Arctic FSC in Canton, Michigan.

In 2000, the reigning U.S. junior champion Belbin and Agosto debuted at the Junior World Championships and won the bronze medal. In 2001, she debuted at the U.S. Senior Championships and won the silver medal at once. This success gave them their World Cup debut in the seniors, which they finished in 17th place. Previously, she had won her second World Junior championship is the silver medal. In 2002, Belbin and Agosto won the silver medal at the national championships and would therefore have been qualified, however, the Canadian-born Tanith Belbin had at that time not yet a U.S. citizen for the Olympic Games in Salt Lake City. For this, they participated in all the other competitions for which they were authorized to start. In Norway Hamar they were junior world champion and thus made ​​their set of medals at Junior World Championships completely. During her debut at the Four Continents Championships, she won the silver medal. This they succeeded in doing it again.

2004 Tanith Belbin and Benjamin Agosto for the first time U.S. champion. They defended the title until 2008. At the Championships in 2005, the last in which the 6,0 - rating system was applied, they got nothing but top marks for the presentation of her free program. 6.0 Of the 30 reviews that were awarded at U.S. Championships in ice dancing, going 14 on their account. In Hamilton, Canada in 2004, they won the gold medal at the Four Continents Championships. They defended this title in 2005 in Gangneung and 2006 in Colorado Springs. At the World Championships 2005 in Moscow Belbin and Agosto won silver with her ​​first World Championship medal, it was also the first World Cup medal for the U.S. in ice dancing for 20 years. This sometimes led to the fact that the United States for the first time since 1984 had three starting places at the Olympics in ice dancing. A special bill of Congress, approved on 28 December 2005 and was signed by President George W. Bush on New Year's Eve, Tanith Belbin got the U.S. citizenship. Thus, participation in the Olympic Games in Turin was assured. There Belbin and Agosto won the silver medal behind the Russians Tatiana Nawka and Roman Kostomarow. It was the first Olympic medal for an ice dance from the United States since the 1976 Olympic Games, as Colleen O'Connor and James Millns won the bronze medal. In the subsequent World Cup Belbin and Agosto won bronze, this result was also repeated in the following year.

After a disappointing fourth place at the World Cup 2008, the ice dance changed his coach and now working with Natalia and Gennadi Linitschuk Karponossow in Aston, Pennsylvania. Your last world championship medal won Belbin and Agosto then 2009 in Los Angeles with silver, just behind the Russians Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin. At the Olympic Games in Vancouver in 2010 she missed a medal in fourth. On 10 June 2010 she announced her retirement from competitive sport.

Results

Ice Dancing

( with Tanith Belbin )

  • Z = Withdrawn; J = Junior

Pictures of Benjamin Agosto

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