When he had asked his mother, who lives in Kirov, Russia, what she wanted to do on her first trip to the USA, a visit here was at the top of her list. She would have liked to have skated around the dinky rink, teeming with tourists on a recent Saturday afternoon, but there was a small problem. "She doesn't skate," her son said with a laugh.

Petukhov and his wife, Melissa Gregory, two-time U.S. silver medalists who live and train in Connecticut, are considered locks for one of the USA's three ice dancing spots for February's Winter Olympics in Torino. The team will be determined at next month's U.S. championships in St. Louis.

After being denied a tourist visa for five years — in large part because Denis came to the USA on a tourist visa and stayed — Luba's application finally was accepted, probably because her son is now a U.S. citizen. After Gregory and Petukhov finished fourth in the Cup of Russia, Luba flew home with them earlier this month.

"When she was sitting on the plane, she was saying that she couldn't believe she was coming. For all her life, she was dreaming to travel. Now here, her dreams are coming true," Denis says.

The same also could be said for Gregory, who grew up in Northbrook, Ill., and Petukhov. Like one of those Russian nesting dolls, their improbable story is nestled inside another improbable story. What began as a match made in cyberspace turned into much more.

The two had been top juniors in their respective countries but struggled to find new partners after their previous ones left competitive skating. After nearly three years of searching, Gregory set a deadline. She would leave her skating career behind and enroll in college if she didn't find a partner by Sept. 1, 2000.

About the same time, Petukhov posted a message on the International Skating Union's website on the partner search page. After a friend of Gregory's mom spotted it, the two skaters exchanged e-mails — businesslike missives about their skating accomplishments and physical descriptions such as height and weight. A tryout was arranged, and Petukhov flew from Moscow to meet Gregory for the first time.

"He arrived on Aug. 31 at 11 p.m., and we started skating the next day. We knew immediately," says Gregory, who found her partner quite literally at the 11th hour.

Petukhov also had scheduled other tryouts with prospective partners. However, after that first day on the ice with Gregory, he canceled them and never used his return ticket home.

Initially, they communicated in what Gregory calls "broken Russian, broken English." (They're both bilingual now.) Much of ice dancing is about chemistry, which is what both felt from the start. When they went to California that September to work with a ballroom dance instructor, "that's when we fell in love," Gregory says. "We had a lot in common, the same interests, the same goals in life."

Gregory and Petukhov were engaged that Christmas and married Feb. 2, 2001. This February, Petukhov was sworn in as a U.S. citizen in Chicago.

It's citizenship that might keep the USA's top ice dancing team of Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto from Torino. Belbin, a Canadian, is in the process of becoming a U.S. citizen, but unless her paperwork is expedited she probably will not become a U.S. citizen in time.

If Belbin and Agosto are ineligible for Torino, Gregory and Petukhov will be the USA's best hope for a medal, which the USA hasn't won in ice dancing since 1976, the first year the discipline was included.

First, though, there's the nationals. Luba will be there, of course, and then return home to the modest apartment where she raised her two children as a single parent on a secretary's salary.

In the meantime, she will get to know her son's new country. At age 50, she is learning to drive. When she walked into Wal-Mart for the first time, her jaw dropped and her eyes widened.

"We could have left her there and come back the next day," Gregory says.

Over lunch at Rockefeller Center, Luba was asked what she's looking forward to the most about the U.S. Championships. Her son translated the question into Russian, listened to her answer and smiled.

"She wants us to win," he said.