Elizabet Tursynbayeva

Elizabet Tursynbaeva (Элизабет Тұрсынбаева, Elizabet Tūrsynbaeva; born 14 February 2000) is a Kazakh retired figure skater.

Elizabet Tursynbaeva was born on 14 February 2000 in Moscow, Russia.

She is the daughter of Padishakhan Sultanalieva and Baitak Tursynbaev.

Her family is originally from Kazakhstan.

Her brother, Timur Tursynbaev, who is two years older than her, is a two-time Kazakhstan national figure skating champion.

Tursynbaeva is a professional violinist and can also play the piano.

She attended a special music school in Moscow.

She was also briefly coached by Elena Buianova and Svetlana Sokolovskaya from 2011 to 2012, before switching to Eteri Tutberidze.

Representing Kazakhstan, Tursynbaeva made her international debut in April 2011, placing fourth in the novice ladies' category at the Rooster Cup.

She won the novice bronze medal at the 2011 NRW Trophy.

After finishing thirteenth at the 2013 Russian Junior Championships, she decided to continue representing Kazakhstan.

She made no international appearances for Russia.

Her coaching relationship with Tutberidze ended in 2013 because Russian coaches no longer had the right to work with non-Russian skaters during the 2014 Olympic season.

Having difficulty finding a coach in Russia, Tursynbaeva and her mother wrote a letter to Brian Orser, whom she had always wanted as a coach, and sent him videos of her, asking if he could coach her.

Orser, impressed by her talent, responded that he would love to work with her.

Before the 2013–2014 season, Tursynbaeva began training under Brian Orser and Tracy Wilson in Toronto, Canada.

In September 2013, she won the silver medal in her ISU Junior Grand Prix (JGP) debut, in Minsk, Belarus.

She placed fifth at her second JGP event, in Tallinn, Estonia, and eleventh at the 2014 World Junior Championships in Sofia, Bulgaria.

She ended her season with gold at the 2014 Triglav Trophy in Slovenia.

During the 2014 JGP series, Tursynbaeva won bronze in Aichi, Japan and silver in Dresden, Germany, finishing as the second alternate for the JGP Final.

She then won the junior ladies' titles at the International Cup of Nice, Merano Cup, and NRW Trophy.

She and her mother settled in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in May 2015, where she was home-schooled.

At the 2015 World Junior Championships in Tallinn, she placed seventh in the short program, fourth in the free skate, and fourth overall.

For most of this season, Tursynbaeva experienced visa problems, which meant that she spent only part of the season training in Toronto under Orser and instead trained mainly at a shopping mall ice rink in Moscow with her mother.

Tursynbaeva became eligible to compete internationally at the senior level for the first time in the 2015-16 season.

She was invited to two Grand Prix events.

Due to her ongoing visa problem, her first short program, Send In the Clowns, was created in Russia.

Her exhibition program, I Got Rhythm, became her short program later during the season.

Tursynbaeva began her season by winning silver at the 2015 U.S. Classic, her first ISU Challenger Series (CS) event, and gold at the 2015 Skate Canada Autumn Classic.

Competing in the junior ranks, Tursynbaeva won bronze at the 2016 Winter Youth Olympics and silver at two ISU Junior Grand Prix events.

She placed 12th at the 2018 Winter Olympics.

Tursynbaeva placed 12th at the 2018 Winter Olympics and was the 20th highest ranked ladies' singles skater in the world by the International Skating Union following the 2019–20 figure skating season.

In September 2021, she announced her retirement due to a chronic back injury.

In 2018 they relocated back to Moscow, Russia.

Tursynbaeva speaks Russian and English.

Because of her small stature, she is known to many of her fans as "Lilbet".

Tursynbaeva started skating at the age of five after following her brother, Timur, into figure skating.

As a child, she was coached by Natalia Dubinskaya and Alexander Shubin.

She is the 2019 World silver medalist, the 2019 Four Continents silver medalist, the 2017 CS Ice Star champion, the 2018 CS Finlandia Trophy silver medalist, the 2015 CS Golden Spin of Zagreb silver medalist, the 2019 Winter Universiade silver medalist, and a three-time Kazakhstani national champion (2015-2017).

Having successfully landed a quadruple Salchow at the 2019 World Figure Skating Championships, Tursynbaeva is the first female skater to land a quadruple jump in senior international competition.