June 22 (Reuters) - Viktor Kudriavtsev, who coached Ilya Kulik to the men's gold medal at the 1998 Nagano Olympics, has died at the age of 88, the Russian Figure Skating Federation said on Monday.
Kudriavtsev became Soviet champion and was a member of the nation's team that competed in the 1956 Winter Games before becoming a coach to multiple Olympic and world medallists.
He initially worked with children, but went on to work with some of the country's most accomplished skaters.
Apart from Kulik, he also coached 1972 Olympic pairs silver medallists Lyudmila Smirnova and Andrei Suraikin, 1975 men's world champion Sergei Volkov, 1984 Olympic bronze medallist Kira Ivanova, and 1999 world champion and three-time European champion Maria Butyrskaya.
(Reporting by Ron Popeski, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
