Ekaterina Andreevna Kurakova (Russian: Екатерина Андреевна Куракова, Polish: Jekatierina Andriejewna Kurakowa, born 24 June 2002),[1] nicknamed Katia,[2] is a Russian-Polish figure skater who currently competes for Poland.

[3] She was coached first by Natalia Dubinskaya at the Moskvich Olympic Reserve School and later by Inna Goncharenko at CSKA Moscow.

[12] On 1 July 2019, Kurakova received her clearance certificate, allowing her to officially represent Poland in international figure skating competitions and ISU championships.

[13][non-primary source needed] In her international senior debut at the Minto Summer Skate in Ontario, Canada, she placed first, scoring 182.77 points overall.

"[16] She was scheduled to make her senior World Championship debut in Montreal, but the event's cancellation prevented this due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

She placed sixth in the short program after a combination error, but a second-place free skate saw her rise to the silver medal position, securing the second of six available Olympic spots.

Returning to Poland to compete at the 2021 CS Warsaw Cup, she won the bronze medal, notably finishing first in the free skate.

At Europeans, Kurakova debuted a new short program to Tchaikovsky's "Valse Sentimentale" and skated cleanly in that segment to set a new personal best.

She executed another clean program in the free skate to earn personal bests in that segment, as well as overall and recorded a career-best placement at the event with a fifth-place finish.

[26] While Kurakova was initially believed to have finished fourth in the free skate and fifth overall, in February 2024 the Court of Arbitration for Sport disqualified erstwhile champion Kamila Valieva for using a banned substance.

[28] Named to the Polish Olympic team, Kurakova placed twenty-fourth in the short program of the women's event, narrowly qualifying for the free skate.

[32] Competing in the Grand Prix, she finished in fifth-place at both 2022 Skate America and 2022 MK John Wilson Trophy.

[24] At the beginning of December, Kurakova was named to the Polish team for the 2023 Winter World University Games in Lake Placid.

[39] Over the summer, Kurakova trained at the Toronto Cricket Skating and Curling Club under the guidance of Orser and Tracy Wilson.

[42] Kurakova was subsequently invited to attend a second Grand Prix, replacing Bradie Tennell at the 2023 Cup of China, where she was seventh again.

[24] At the 2024 European Championships in Kaunas, Kurakova struggled with her jumps in the short program and finished twenty-fifth in the segment, missing the cut for the free skate by one ordinal.

[45] Following the disappointment at the European Championships, Kurakova took two weeks to contemplate whether she wanted to continue, but ultimately said that "I realized that I love skating very much, even if it is difficult sometimes.

She attended the 2024 World Championships in Montreal, where she placed fourteenth in the short program despite performing only a triple-double jump combination instead of her planned triple-triple.

She rose to eleventh after the free skate, a season's best and the highest placement for a Polish skater since Anna Rechnio's sixth in 1999.

She said that she was happy with her placement and that "Silver tastes like gold, because unfortunately the beginning of the season has been difficult for me, I haven't shown good results."