So what on earth ever happened to....

[JonnyCoop]

The three young Russian Ladies who swept the Jr Worlds podium in 1996?

I happened to be looking through my archives yesterday and came across the 96 Jr. Worlds results. Ladies finished as follows:

1. Elena Ivanova
2. Elena Pingacheva
3. Nadeja Kanaeva
4. Fumie Suguri
5. Tara Lipinski
6. Vanessa Gusmeroli
7. Shizuka Arakawa

This means that 3 young Russian ladies who never made an Olympic, World, or European team (and only Ivanova ever competed in a GP event) beat out 2 future World bronze medallists, a future WC/OGM, and a second future WC. What ever happened to any of these ladies? I realize that due to the unusual amount of talent among the Russian ladies in the mid-90s there wasn't a lot of room at the top, but nevertheless.... I'll bet the Russian Federation would KILL to have those 3 around now, given their current depth problem beyond Irina and Elena S. [Jury still being out on whether or not Julia S. will ever regain her 99-00 form and on whether or not Vika is going to rebound from last season]

[RealtorGal]

Amazing that only one year later Tara was World champion and two years later Olympic champion! I guess you can never count anyone out.

[RealtorGal]

It looks like those 3 Russian ladies disappeared into the oblivion that is post skating life for the "also-skated."

[berthes ghost]

A) That's the way of the sport. 96 wasn't all that special, afterall 2000 goes:
1 Jennifer Kirk
2 Deanna Stellato
3 Sarah Meier
4 Tamara Dorofejev
5 Elina Kettunen
6 Sasha Cohen

No all junior champs go on to be world champs. Afterall, Derrick Delmore is a world junior champ.

B) Like a lot of little girls, they lost thier triples as they grew. 98 Russian senior nats has Ivanova struggling with her jumps and not having much to offer without them, thus finishing 6th.

Edited to add; Don't forget, K Oblasova, who was the 2001 world junior champ, was ditched from team Russia in favor of an ill Irina, after her 16th placement at 04 Euros.

[JonnyCoop]

A) That's the way of the sport. 96 wasn't all that special, afterall 2000 goes:
1 Jennifer Kirk
2 Deanna Stellato
3 Sarah Meier
4 Tamara Dorofejev
5 Elina Kettunen
6 Sasha Cohen

No all junior champs go on to be world champs. Afterall, Derrick Delmore is a world junior champ.

B) Like a lot of little girls, they lost thier triples as they grew. 98 Russian senior nats has Ivanova struggling with her jumps and not having much to offer without them, thus finishing 6th.

Edited to add; Don't forget, K Oblasova, who was the 2001 world junior champ, was ditched from team Russia in favor of an ill Irina, after her 16th placement at 04 Euros.

Oh, I know how it goes with making the junior/senior transition a lot of the time, especially with the ladies. I would argue, however, that 96 is especially notable given that 3 ladies who never went anywhere on the senior level won the medals whereas the next 4 in the standings collectively accomplished a LOT. This is why these results particularly jumped out at me.

[MasterB]

That just goes to show that it's not how you start that matters, but rather how you finish. There have been alot of junior U.S. champions that never get anywhere. Many have called that event the "Kiss of Death".

[chuckm]

Michelle Kwan was World Junior Champion in 1994, and Irina Slutskaya, in 1995, but the champs from 1996 through 2000 (Yelena Ivanova, Sydne Vogel, Yulia Soldatova, Daria Timoshenko, Kristina Oblasova) did not follow in their footsteps . The next four are still works in progress: Jenny Kirk, AP McDonough, Yukina Ota and Miki Ando.

Kwan and Slutskaya between them have 3 Olympic medals, 13 World medals and 6 World Championships. Add in Soldatova and you have a total of 14 World medals.

The Junior World Champion men would seem to have done better: Ilya Kulik, Alexei Yagudin, Evgeny Plushenko, Michael Weiss and Stefan Lindemann have all stood on the World podium. Others are still works in progress: Johnny Weir, Daisuke Takahashi, Ilya Klimkin, Alexander Shubin and Andre Griazev. Derrick Delmore may not have progressed much since his win, but he has accumulated two college degrees.

Kulik, Yagudin and Plushenko have among them 3 Olympic medals and 2 Olympic Championships; 12 World medals and 7 World Championships; add in Weiss and Lindemann and you have 15 World medals.

[Joesitz]

Good Post, Chuckm, and very interesting.

Joe

[Jaana]

http://www.isu.org/vsite/vfile/page/...-0-file,00.pdf

Among earlier male singles Junior World champions are also:

1980 Alexandr Fadeev - one World gold and 3 bronzes
1981 Paul Wylie - Olympic silver medal and great pro career
1984 Viktor Petrenko - one World gold, one silver and two bronzes, one Olympic gold and bronze medal
1987 Rudy Galindo - World bronze
1988 Todd Eldredge - one World gold, 3 silver and two bronze medals

and also e.g. such well-known skaters like Scott Williams and Christopher Bowman.

Among earlier ladies:

1979 Elaine Zayak - one World gold, silver and bronze
1980 Rosalyn Sumners - one World gold and Olympic silver medal
1981 Tiffany Chin - two World bronze medals
1988 Kristi Yamaguchi - two World gold medals and one Olympic gold
1990 Yuka Sato - one World gold
1991 Surya Bonaly - three World silver medals

Marjaana