Yagudin and Plushenko: champions who hated each other

Men’s singles skating in Russia is currently in crisis. Only the recent victory of Dmitry Aliev at the European Championships in Graz, Austria, gives hope to the fans. Otherwise, all the attention has long been focused on the girls: a serious, albeit friendly struggle for the podium in Eteri Tutberidze’s group fuels interest in the skating.

At the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the noughties everything was the opposite. Women were not so lucky at major competitions, but two pupils of Alexei Mishin – Alexei Yagudin and Evgeny Plushenko – were ready to go over each other’s heads to take the gold at the next start. And they succeeded – one by one and, of course, with mutual dislike. We tell the story of the confrontation between two titled skaters of the past, whose fates were so symbolically intertwined in childhood and had much in common until the end of their careers.

Meeting at Yubileyny: How did the skaters come under Alexei Mishin’s guidance?

Yagudin started skating at the age of four in his native Leningrad, where his mother took him for training. Alexander Mayorov, a pupil of Alexei Mishin, became Lyosha’s mentor. The young figure skater skated under the guidance of his first coach for eight years. When the novice athlete turned 12, Mayorov was invited to work in Sweden. Yagudin’s parents did not let him go abroad after his mentor and on the coach’s recommendation transferred the boy to Mishin’s group at the Yubileiny Sports Palace.

Plushenko found himself there two years later. Before that, he trained in Volgograd under the guidance of Tatiana Skala and Mikhail Makoveev. Interestingly, Evgeny also came to figure skating at the age of four and at the insistence of his mother. At the age of 11, he was forced to move alone to St. Petersburg to continue training, as the Volgograd sports school closed.

Alexei Mishin and Evgeny Plushenko

At that time, no one could think that two painful looking boys would become the main competitors in men’s skating. So far, they were peacefully performing elements on the ice, bullying each other in the locker room, while all of Mishin’s attention was focused on his older charges – Olympic champion Alexei Urmanov, Ruslan Novoseltsev and Oleg Taturov.

Boys’ squabbles: Yagudin was locked in a locker and Plushenko was chased home

Zhenya, 11, and Lyosha, 13, were the youngest in Mishin’s group. Before Plushenko’s move to Yubileyny, Yagudin was the main target for taunts. Later he told me that it didn’t end with words: the older guys could beat the younger ones with blade cases. And once teammates locked Alexei in a small locker in the locker room and kept him there for about an hour.

Unfortunately, Eugene did not escape insults. Most often he was reproached for being a commuter. “Go to your Volgograd!” – phrase that Plushenko heard constantly, and most often from Yagudin. Apparently, Alexei had time to accumulate anger, and now he also decided to get even on the younger.

Ironic that Evgeny saw the situation from the opposite angle. In his opinion, Alexei was Mishin’s favorite. After all, he got the best programs, music, costumes and was given more time. And Plushenko himself “collected the leftovers”.

Season-1997/1998 was the last season for the two skaters, when they skated in the same group. During this time Alexey beat Evgeny in five tournaments, won the European Championships in Milan and was selected for the Games in Nagano. But all the merits as if relegated to the background, and Mishin, indeed, penetrated the modest and punctual Plushenko. The figure skater wrote about it in his autobiography “Another Show”:

I grew up and caught up with Yagudin. I was breathing down his neck and stepping on his heels. Alexei Nikolaevich finally noticed my potential and began to devote much more time to me. Yagudin was getting nervous and irritated.

Against the background of his indiscipline, the conflict was growing. At the European Championships in Milan, the coach went to extreme measures: he forbade Yagudin to communicate with other skaters, took away his game console and controlled the time at which the athlete returned to his hotel room. But that was far from the worst of it. The boiling point was reached at the 1998 Olympics.

Turning point: the Games in Nagano and leaving for Tarasova

At the Games, Alexei was fifth, and the competition was won by Ilya Kulik, a pupil of Tatiana Tarasova. This result – or rather, its ridiculous reason – was a major disappointment for Mishin. Yagudin caught a cold while sitting under the air conditioning after the short program, and he came out sick for the free skate and failed it. In his autobiography “NaPROlom” he recalled the offensive start:

Alexei Nikolaevich didn’t say a word. When the scores appeared on the scoreboard, he left, leaving me alone with my feelings. I knew: he was angry at me for being sick.

After the unsuccessful Olympics, neither the figure skater nor the coach hid that their relationship had reached an impasse. When the Russian Figure Skating Federation proposed to send Plushenko to the upcoming World Championships, bypassing Yagudin, almost everyone – except Mishin – disagreed with this decision. Alexei still made it to the world championships, took gold, and then decided to quit.

Alexei Yagudin at the Nagano Olympics

In the off-season it became known that Ilya Kulik was leaving Tatiana Tarasova. Yagudin decided not to miss the opportunity and called her personally, asking to be accepted into the group. After the transition, the skater was threatened that henceforth he would not win a single start. At first it seemed that the terrible wishes came true.

The beginning of Plushenko’s superiority over Yagudin

According to Plushenko, he did not expect that Yagudin would leave Mishin, but was happy about this outcome. Since then Evgeny became the main figure skater in the group and in 1999 he scored his first victory over his senior colleague. It happened at the Russian Championships, a competition that Plushchenko subsequently won nine more times, while Yagudin never did. Alexei suspected that the judging was not so fair and transparent because of his former mentor’s friendly ties with the head of the federation.

There came a difficult period in Yagudin’s career: Plushenko grew up and for three years beat his competitor. In addition, the joint in his hip began to hurt. This upset Alexei’s new coach Tatiana Tarasova. She, in turn, changed the tactics of the game: now the emphasis in Yagudin’s programs was not on stamped quadruples, but on charisma and acting. To tame the unrestrained character of her ward, Tarasova enlisted the help of psychologist Rudolf Zagainov. There were strange rumors around his work, as if he could jinx or hypnotize the opponents of the skater.

At the same time, Yagudin shouted joyfully and jumped up when he saw his competitor fail. He realized that he would snatch the title of Olympic champion. And so it happened. Alexey brilliantly performed the “Winter” program, which the audience watched dozens of times in the recordings even after the Games.

Both skaters performed their free skating routines well, but the gap was obvious. Yagudin’s skating was so spectacular that he kneeled in front of his coach as he approached the board, who led him to the coveted victory. And Tatiana shouted to him: “Thank you, sweetie, thank you! I didn’t even know you could do that!”.

The end of his career: one scenario 12 years apart

After winning the Olympics, Yagudin won the World Championships in Japan, and then, at the beginning of the next season, went to Skate America. But he was never able to perform there. Right before the program, he went up to the judges and admitted that he would not be able to skate because of a sore joint. It’s a familiar story, isn’t it? At the same time Alexey finished his career, and a titanium prosthesis had to be inserted into his leg.

Plushenko continued to please the coach and the audience and in 2006 he fulfilled a long-held dream: he won the Olympics in Turin. Yagudin said that at the same time he sent his colleague a sincere text message congratulating him, but received no reply.

Yevgeny Plushenko at the awarding ceremony at the Olympics in Turin

Speaking about the Games, in 2010 Plushenko was second in Vancouver, and in 2014 he again took gold in the team competition. But in single skating he was not able to show himself: just like Alexei, he withdrew from the competition just minutes before the rolling, which fans could not forget. After all, because of Evgeny, young potential champions Maxim Kovtun and Sergey Voronov were left out.

When the fervor died down: the hatred of figure skaters was invented?

Many years have passed since Plushenko and Yagudin fought. Both skaters finished their careers, participated in ice shows, wrote autobiographies in which they mentioned each other many times, and went their separate ways. Now they try to talk about the former confrontation with restraint, and Yagudin said that their conflict was hyped by the press.

Perhaps a lot of what is being said now is exaggerated. But the fact is the fact: these guys never tired of stepping on each other’s toes and did not accept each other due to completely different characters. And the main thing is that their sporting anger gave us many bright victories.