Dancing with the Stars - Season 16 Professional Dancers

KARINA SMIRNOFF

CELEBRITY PARTNER: Jacoby Jones

BACKGROUND:

Karina was born in the Ukraine before she made her way to the U.S. with her family at the age of 12. And speaking of her family, we're giving a great big shout out to Karina's folks for getting her started with ballet lessons when she was five. Think they had any idea what they started?!

At the age of nine, Karina was introduced to ballroom dancing and fell in love with it. After high school, she graduated from Fordham University but put her academic studies on hold to pursue her ballroom dancing career in the United Kingdom.

We first fell in love with Karina during Season 3 when she swung into a second place finish with partner Mario Lopez. Not bad for a DWTS rookie. The next season she finished fifth with Billy Ray Cyrus. The two would team up again after their last dance when Karina guest starred on Hannah Montana. And in Season 13, she went all the way, winning the mirror ball trophy with J.R. Martinez as her partner.

Karina and her former partner Slavik Kryklyvyy shared tremendous success winning the U.S. Championships and many other world titles and were ranked second in the world in the Latin division.

ACHIEVEMENTS:

• Five-time U.S. National Champion
• World Trophy Champion
• Asian Open Champion

PRIOR CELEBRITY PARTNERS:

• Apolo Anton Ohno
• Gavin DeGraw
• J.R. Martinez
• Ralph Macchio
• Mike Sorrentino
• Aaron Carter
• Mario Lopez
• Billy Ray Cyrus
• Floyd Mayweather Jr.
• Rocco DiSpirito
• Mario
• Steve Wozniak