Irina Moiseeva and Andrei Minenkov met at the rink when they were six years old and began skating together in 1967.

The next season, Moiseeva and Minenkov were again ranked behind Linichuk/Karponosov at the Soviet Championships but edged past them in international competition to be second only to Pakhomova/Gorshkov.

They won a silver medal at the 1976 Olympics, the first Games to include ice dancing.

[2] Olympic champions Torvill and Dean considered them one of their greatest influences.

[2] In 1989, Minenkov graduated from the Moscow State Institute of Radiotechnics, Electronics and Automation and founded a company, Kholod, in 1993.