Karina Smirnoff

Dancer

Hot-blooded Karina Smirnoff, the resident bombshell of "Dancing with the Stars" (ABC, 2005- ) was born in the Ukraine before making her way to America with her family at the age of 12. At the age of five, she was given ballet lessons and by nine years old, was introduced to ballroom dancing, immediately falling 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. 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. Among her other achievements were Five-time U.S. National Champion, World Trophy Champion and Asian Open Champion