What's the Story?

Russia had begun taking steps towards figure skating domination around 1994. 2002 was another big step. Three total medalists in the figure skating competition of these Olympic games were Russian, two men and one woman. On the men's side, the last three Olympic games had been won by a Russian man. What were the Russians doing differently that was propelling them to the top of the podium again and again? One thing was for sure, the rivalry between Alexei Yagudin and Evgeni Plushenko was inevitably going to end with one of them standing on the podium, flashing a gold medal around their neck, and the other one bitterly disappointed.

Alexei Yagudin would walk away from the 2002 Olympics with that gold medal, and Evgeni would return with a vengeance four years later. It is undeniable that these two men catapulted men's figure skating within Russia to some new heights. Sports Illustrated wrote that year that these two "are extending the frontiers of figure skating in a way no one has done since Dick Button began introducing triples some 50 years ago" (Swift). Their rivalry comes partly from their shared coach, or I should say, their previously shared coach. Alexei Mishin had been coaching Yagudin for some time when Plushenko came along. Sensing that Plushenko was a natural talent, Mishin began coaching him as well, causing immense jealousy in Yagudin, who clearly needed to be the single star of Mishin's show. Yagudin left Mishin, and began working with Tatiana Tarasova in New Jersey. So, Yagudin traveled halfway around the world to get his spotlight away from Mishin and Plushenko, just to face them in Salt Lake City for an epic showdown. His New Jersey training with Tarasova paid off, for he left Salt Lake City with the gold medal in hand, leaving Plushenko to stew over his silver, already preparing for 2006.

The male Russian domination seemed complete. A Russian man had won the gold medal every year since 1992. And in 1988, there were three Russian men in the top six. 2010 would prove a different story, but that will have to wait until the expansion of this site.

2002 was expected to be a fight among the women as well, with Sarah Hughes, Michelle Kwan, Irina Slutskaya, and Sasha Cohen all vying for that top spot. Three Americans. One Russian. Slutskaya, in an interview many years after the Olympics, said "I knew beforehand I wouldn't be allowed to win there—it was all about politics. But, undoubtedly, it was extremely unfair, because, according to all the criteria, I definitely won at those games" (RT Sport). The judges favored Sarah Hughes at these games, despite many critics and commentators calling her jumps underrotated--underrotated jumps can bring the scores down pretty drastically, so this was a big deal. But Slutskaya's claim that she knew that she would not be permitted to win the gold medal in the United States leads us to many other questions. Aren't judges supposed to be unbiased? The host country should not have any say in who medals, right? The nationality of a skater should not matter either, right? Slutskaya, so it seems, would say that indeed her Russian nationality did matter at these American winter games, leaving her with the silver medal and a bitter taste in her mouth.

In other former Soviet nation news, 2002 saw the first three women competing for Belarus, Croatia, and Slovakia and the first man competing for Georgia. A mere ten years after the fall of the Soviet Union, and more former Soviet nations were beginning to grab hold of the figure skating world. While skating was still predominantly European, Asian, and American, it was beginning to see slightly more diversity in terms of national representation.

Food for Thought

How can we ensure absolute impartiality in a sport that has a subjective side to it?

Are figure skating rivalries, or rivalries in any sport for that matter, beneficial to the athletes? At what point do the rivalries become more harmful than beneficial?

Perhaps this is an overstatement, but figure skating sure has a lot of scandals in relation to some other Olympic sports. Why might this be? What is inherent in figure skating that might cause these serious issues for the athletes and the countries they represent?

How can we ensure that a skater or an athlete does not feel cheated by the host nation?