Russia Tries to Rebuild a Figure Skating Dynasty
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/sport ... wanted=all
MOSCOW — The world figure skating championships have returned to Russia on short notice, and the Megasport Arena in Moscow is draped with banners honoring Russia’s finest.
“Yagudin Forever,” reads one poster dedicated to Aleksei Yagudin, the Olympic gold medalist and four-time world champion. “May Your Dreams Come True,” reads another featuring a huge photo of Yevgeny Plushenko, the sharp-featured jumper extraordinaire.
The trouble is, neither Yagudin nor Plushenko is skating in Moscow this year. Yagudin retired from competition in 2003 and now makes his living from exhibitions. Plushenko, the 2006 Olympic gold medalist and three-time world champion, made a successful comeback last season after an extended hiatus and took a silver medal at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver but has since been declared ineligible by the International Skating Union.
He was in the stands on Wednesday for the men’s short program but ended up having to watch Patrick Chan of Canada break his record with a powerful and complete performance that earned 93.02 total points.
Without Plushenko, Russia no longer has any singles skaters who qualify for star treatment, and is no longer the market leader in its longtime dominions of pairs or ice dance, either. Vancouver was the first Olympics since 1960 that skaters from Russia or the former Soviet Union failed to win a figure skating gold. Even if Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin sent a telegram to Plushenko reassuring him that “your silver is worth a gold,” there was no mistaking that this was a flop by Russian standards. The concern now is that the country will fail on the ice when it matters more: in Sochi in 2014 at the first Winter Olympics staged in Russia.
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Morozov’s return comes after Aleksandr Zhulin, another leading coach and former star, returned to Russia from abroad to help develop the nation’s ice dancing talent. It is all part of a governmental push for excellence in 2014.
“I’d like to officially declare that we have not had such a positive attention and such productive real help in the past like we have now,” said Alexei Mishin, the iconic coach who developed Yagudin and Plushenko. “Maybe it’s the best moment in my coaching history to do the coaching job. We have more attention, more organization and more money. Just blinking the eyes never brings satisfaction. You need all this.”
Mishin is deeply involved in developing the next generation. But for now, neither Morozov nor Zhulin is working exclusively with Russian skaters. Zhulin, whose training base is here in the Megasport Arena, continues to coach the French team of Nathalie Péchalat and Fabian Bourzat, the reigning European dance champions. Morozov continues to coach and choreograph for a global cast, including France’s surprise European men’s champion, Florent Amodio, and the former women’s world champion, Miki Ando of Japan.
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The biggest concern is the Russian men. Plushenko, even if he manages to be reinstated by the I.S.U., will be 31 in 2014, a tough age for any competitor in a microcosm where quadruple jumps are the coin of the realm. Only one Russian man is competing in Moscow: Artur Gachinski, 17, and also developed by Mishin. He stood a surprising fourth after the short program, after landing a quadruple-triple combination but has yet to show consistency.
“The hardest event of the four for us is the men’s,” Morozov said. “We should work on it a little bit more, but it’s not going to be easy for Sochi. It’s just a very short period of time.”




... she did not know, that Plushy often talk with Cinquanta?

Какая фоточка!
cekoni, спасибо за видео 


