MOSCOW, August 22. /TASS/. /TASS/. Russia’s Olympic Ice Dancing Champion Roman Kostomarov made his first public appearance after he had his feet amputated due to a sever disease.

Kostomarov walked onto the ice, wearing sneakers, during Ilya Averbukh’s Love Letters ice show in Sochi on Tuesday, when his wife, Oksana Domnina, was performing. The spectators welcomed him by applause.

On January 10, Kostomarov was admitted to the intensive care unit of Moscow’s Kommunarka hospital with pneumonia. A source told TASS later that the figure skater was in serious condition in a medically induced coma. Kostomarov was hooked up to an ECMO machine, from which he was removed on January 24, but continued to suffer from sepsis and blood circulation problems. A source told TASS on February 7 that had his both feet amputated. On July 6, Kostomarov said that he had been released from the hospital.

Kostomarov, 46, won a gold medal at the 2006 Turin Olympics together with Tatiana Navka. The two are also two-time world champions, three-time European champions and winners of the ISU Grand Prix Series Finals.