Season 13 Mirror Ball Champion Karina Smirnoff made her mark for 10 years as one of the featured dancers on ABC\u2019s hit reality series Dancing with the Stars<\/i>. Her success on Dancing with the Stars<\/i>, the #1 rated show in its category averaging 36+ million viewers per week, has made Karina a household name and a sought after beauty, health, fitness, and fashion icon. She has been the most Googled professional dancer on the show.<\/p>\n
What most people don\u2019t know about the Ukrainian beauty is that her skills are not merely physical. She studied diligently at Fordham University in New York and earned two degrees \u2013 a B.A. in Economics and in Information Systems Programming. Karina is also a talented fashion designer and choreographer. She choreographed all of her own partnered routines on Dancing with the Stars<\/i> and designed all of the costumes for both herself and her partners since day one.<\/p>\n
Karina started competing in ballroom dancing competitions at the age of 11. She is a five-time U.S. National Champion, World Trophy Champion, and Asian Open Champion. She has won the title at the UK Open, is a three-time champion at the US Open, two-time champion at the Asian Open, five-time champion at the Dutch Open, and five-time US National Professional Champion. She has taken second at the British Open Blackpool Dance Festival and she is the first woman to ever make the “British Professional Final” with three different partners. Karina has been ranked #2 in the world for Latin Dance.<\/p>\n
She is considered \u201cone of the most stylish and fit stars in Hollywood\u201d and has been featured in numerous publications: FitnessRx for Women<\/i>, FHM<\/i>, Fitness Magazine<\/i>, LA Confidential<\/i>, Muscle & Fitness<\/i>, TV Guide<\/i>, and Woman\u2019s World<\/i>. She is a regular on the pages of People Magazine<\/i>, Life & Style<\/i>, US Weekly<\/i>, OK! Magazine<\/i>, and In Touch<\/i>.<\/p>\n
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She released her first successful dance fitness DVD called Shape Up with Karina<\/i> and will be releasing a series of workout DVD\u2019s called DanceFITNESS<\/i>. She also opened a successful dance studio in Woodland Hills, CA called Karina Smirnoff Dance<\/a>. The studio incorporates competitive, social dance classes, and fitness dance classes, as well as a scholarship program for at-risk youth directly related to her charity Dance Intervention \u2013 a division of Alternative Intervention Models.<\/p>\n Karina has a passion for environmental causes and her dance studio is the first eco-friendly LEED certified studio of its kind. In addition, Karina has led a celebrity consortium to activate the Wildlife Champions initiative with Procter & Gamble. She is also a PETA spokeswoman for the \u201cI\u2019d rather dance naked than wear fur\u201d billboard and print campaign.<\/p>\n