another Yagudin article

You can't even get American skaters to skate in 4Cs, let alone tour Russia.

In terms of bargaining, Irina doesn't have a leg to stand on compared to Sasha. Sure, Irina can ask for more money, and Tom will just tell her no and where to go. There are only two tours in the US, COI or SOI and heaven forbid a skater burn the bridges with both of these tours. These tours hire and pay what they want to pay (esp in this market). We've seen what happened with Ilia Kulik and how he was discarded when Alexei won and when the next guy wins, Alexei will be discarded in favor of that guy. You look at who gets the permanent gigs with SOI :Browning, Eldredge, Roz Sumners, Katia Gordeeva and Meno & Sand. The only Russian getting a permanent gig is Katia and that is mainly because of the tragedy that occurred with Sergei. Had Sergei been alive, I bet SOI would have gotten rid of G&G by now. Todd hasn't given specifics of his deal but he signed on for 6 years and he said that the money was enough for him to live on for a long time. Alexei's deal was for 4 years. I assume SOI is paying Alexei good money but look at the discrepancy of the deals. Todd already has a longer deal than Alexei which reflects that SOI views Todd as a more permanent cast member than Alexei. Plus despite Todd's quiet personality, he is the one being groomed to take over Kurt's spot and not ALexei. Alexei speaks great English, is extremely handsome, very outgoing and very masculine (because Scott is very hung up on not being gay- check his book out for more details). Why not groom him for that spot?

And Americans aren't hung up on seeing only Americans. Look at how quickly they've embraced foreign tennis stars (Marat Safin, Anna Kournikova, Sharapova) and foreign actors and actresses. The powers that be can easily market Alexei to the public and the people will eat him up. Alexei has the goods to back up the hype.

I wonder if Lambiel wins the OGM if he will get a better deal than ALexei... I still think there's some cold war issues going on with Russians in skating.

Like Kwanfan12 said where did you read that SOI would not sign up for Yagudin. All he got was 4 year contract, which is not expired until next year right? How do you know SOI weren't sign Yagudin for another 4 years? And like someone else up thread said, it may well end be Yagudin who does not want continue another contract because he is 'tired' on living on a road, which displayed in his interview.

As for Todd got 6 years deal instead of Yag's 4 years with SOI. I would guess it has more to do with Yag had a known injury when he signed on with SOI. Having the experience to deal with Tara's injury, I would guess SOI management knowing how risk it is to sign a long contract with a injured skater. Besides it was reported that Todd at age of 30s still reel off 3 axels like nothing daily in SOI night show. But Yagudin can only do some simple triples because his hip injury. (I'm a fan of Yagudin's skating, still missed his eligible skating). Again it is BUSSINESS not Nationality.

As for SOI discard Kulik for Yagudin. May be it was because themselves out bid the position to each other. Or may be Kulik has contract with other country tour in mind. Was he in Japan toure and only performed as a guest in SOI in some stops?

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In terms of bargaining, Irina doesn't have a leg to stand on compared to Sasha. Sure, Irina can ask for more money, and Tom will just tell her no and where to go.
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That's the point. It's market driven. And bussiness driven. Sarah as reigning OGM diddn't get her COI contract renewed after 2003 worlds where she placed 6th. She is an all American after all. But Irina, a Rusian, who got her COI contract during both 2003 and 2004 season, she diddn't particpant in 2003 worlds, finished 9th at 2004 worlds. You tell me this is about Nationality?

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I wonder if Lambiel wins the OGM if he will get a better deal than ALexei... I still think there's some cold war issues going on with Russians in skating.
"
Could be. But I see it is the other way around in fans, especially Rusian fans. If you visit FSU often, you'd see some threads after the worlds.

Sarah didn't get her COI contract renewed because her father had a conflict with Tom Collins over Sarah skating the full tour. I don't think that Irina is a draw to the average fan, esp fans who follow the Olympics every four years who sat through Irina's sh!tty performance and then listened to news reports on how the Russians were protesting the Ladies results.

As for ALexei's injury, I believe he signed before his injury became known. And reeling off triple axels isn't a requirement to be a show skater. Look how long Roz skated with SOI with just double jumps and Kurt doesn't do too many triples as well. Alexei has triple jumps, just no axel so I don't think Todd is in that much of a better position than Alexei. If triple axels were required, then Kulik should be on SOI because his axel is way better than Todd's.

The last eligible competetion that Alexie skated, I believe was Skate Canada where he withdrawn during the LP after watched Tim or someone else skated a very good LP. I believe he cited his injury as the reason of withdrawn right there.

Sarah's withdrawn from COI contract, at the time, there were different story floating on the web, your's is one version. There was other version. The bottom line is if you are that GOOD, and will be a HUGE drawing of the show, the show would take whatever cost to sign you up. (Just like you go job interview, if you know you are that good, stick with what you wanted, you will got your deal) It's the bussiness, and it's the way American doing the bussiness.

Ptichka said:

...
As to him being the only child and therefore spoiled... that's just stereotype.

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ITA, but stereotypes take root because they are so common. Alexei is an only male child, raised by his Mom and Grandma (his Grandma survived the siege of Leningrad in WWII.) Given these circumstances, it's not unreasonable to think Alexei is used to being the center of attention.

Yes, it was Alexei who complained that he did not skate last at COI 2002. Kwan is the current OBM, while he is the current OGM. I can understand his reasoning, but did he understand how popular Kwan is? I had never read Alexei's comment about American women and McDonald's. But it is another example of biting the hand that feeds him; I would venture that the majority of the audience at the U.S. SOI shows are American women. Ouch!

Many of the current crop of Spring/Summer articles appear translated on AYDG. One writer said that only about 20% of what Alexei had said during an interview was published; it had to be edited. (Thank goodness someone edited Alexei, but no doubt it was edited to be the most interesting for Russian readers.)The writer wondered if Alexei had missed speaking Russian, LOL. The Russian publishers fashion the articles for their audience. The longer Alexei stays in Russia, the more new articles will appear. Perhaps there is a mathematical formula to express this.

It could be a long Summer...

I read recently that Ilya Averbukh organized a skating tour of Russia -- no non-
Russians at all were in the cast. The American tours include skaters from Russia, Germany, China, Japan and France, as well as the US and Canada.

attyfan said:

I read recently that Ilya Averbukh organized a skating tour of Russia -- no non-
Russians at all were in the cast. The American tours include skaters from Russia, Germany, China, Japan and France, as well as the US and Canada.

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If you mean the "Forever and Together" tour, Chait and Sakhnovski performed in the show.

soogar said:

I don't think that Irina is a draw to the average fan, esp fans who follow the Olympics every four years who sat through Irina's sh!tty performance and then listened to news reports on how the Russians were protesting the Ladies results

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If there are three skaters who would draw in your average skater, I'd be surprised. Slutskaya was the feel-good story of the year, and the Seattle crowd at least gave her a massive, well-deserved ovation. She rocked the house.

mzheng said:

The last eligible competetion that Alexie skated, I believe was Skate Canada where he withdrawn during the LP after watched Tim or someone else skated a very good LP. I believe he cited his injury as the reason of withdrawn right there.

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???

He withdrew from Skate America in 2002 in the warm-up for the LP because of the hip injury... that's when he learnt how serious the problem was. And he had still won the SP.

RIskatingfan said:

???

He withdrew from Skate America in 2002 in the warm-up for the LP because of the hip injury... that's when he learnt how serious the problem was. And he had still won the SP.

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OK, then my mistake. It's SA he withdrew. But my point in argument stands his injury was known to public before he sign up with SOI.

No, it wasn't. He had been signed with SOI for months already, I think it was sometime after Worlds. When he signed with SOI there was no injury in the picture. He was planning to tour AND compete as an amateur, though, which is why he was doing the GP.

I guess this whole thing is about ex-patriot Russians living in N.America demanding that Russian skaters get preference over N.American skaters.

At the moment, I see Alexei as skating in N.America with other Russians in SOI. I really don't understand the complaints. SOI has to make good business deals to keep the show running. The only problem I see is that without Kurt, there will be more of a drop in attendance. And remember, no skater can keep a performance running more than one night. They just are not that popular in the USA. How could they be? when they have Brittany Spears! and that's the way it is in popular showbiz.

Joe

hockeyfan228 said:

If you mean the "Forever and Together" tour, Chait and Sakhnovski performed in the show ... Slutskaya was the feel-good story of the year, and the Seattle crowd at least gave her a massive, well-deserved ovation. She rocked the house.

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Wasn't Sakhnovski born in Russia? It occurred to me, though, that maybe, the non-NA skaters need something more than the medal -- such as beeing "the feel good story of the year" -- before they get popular.

Joesitz said:

I guess this whole thing is about ex-patriot Russians living in N.America demanding that Russian skaters get preference over N.American skaters.

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This whole thing is about fans wanting to see their favorite skaters getting the most honors, that's all. And when it comes to favorite skaters, I don't find it even necessary to mention how nationality is only a factor among many others. I think by now everyone knows that skaters like Weir, Plushenko or Lambiel have huge fans all over the world and not just in their native countries.

Joesitz said:

The only problem I see is that without Kurt, there will be more of a drop in attendance.

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Wouldn't it be so good for skating in the US if that was the issue... Skating's popularity seems to be decreasing overall - in SOI, the whole professional field, in the eligible field as well... Looks like it's all going back to the period before Kerrigan/Harding.

RIskatingfan said:

This whole thing is about fans wanting to see their favorite skaters getting the most honors, that's all. And when it comes to favorite skaters, I don't find it even necessary to mention how nationality is only a factor among many others. I think by now everyone knows that skaters like Weir, Plushenko or Lambiel have huge fans all over the world and not just in their native countries.

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Yeah, those Ubekistan fans of Michelle Kwan are quite obvious.

And I agree on the diversity in N.America that it lends itself to a variety of tastes.

Wouldn't it be so good for skating in the US if that was the issue... Skating's popularity seems to be decreasing overall - in SOI, the whole professional field, in the eligible field as well... Looks like it's all going back to the period before Kerrigan/Harding.

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That's the way the cookie crumbles when scandal is not resolved.

Joe

Joesitz said:

Yeah, those Ubekistan fans of Michelle Kwan are quite obvious. And I agree on the diversity in N.America that it lends itself to a variety of tastes.

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You agree? But that's not what I said (although I agree with that as well). Note the word "world" in my post. Unfortunately, I can't read Uzbek, so I don't know what they say about Kwan in message boards. I don't doubt they would enjoy watching her if she skated there someday, though

That's the way the cookie crumbles when scandal is not resolved.

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Umm,not that the Kerrigan/Harding situation that led to the skating boom in the US was exactly something for skating in general to be proud of... quite the contrary one would assume...

RIskatingfan said:

This whole thing is about fans wanting to see their favorite skaters getting the most honors, that's all. And when it comes to favorite skaters, I don't find it even necessary to mention how nationality is only a factor among many others. I think by now everyone knows that skaters like Weir, Plushenko or Lambiel have huge fans all over the world and not just in their native countries.
.

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Joe's statement still hold true though that a lot of ex-Rusian moved to US. Did you see a lot of Americans move to Rusia? or pre Soviet Union country? Among those imigrants some of them are skating fans.

mzheng said:

Joe's statement still hold true though that a lot of ex-Rusian moved to US. Did you see a lot of Americans move to Rusia? or pre Soviet Union country? Among those imigrants some of them are skating fans.

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And maybe judges. Once they get their credentials going for a judgships, there is no reason not to give it to them. I don't have a problem with fans hoping for skaters of their racial and ethnic backgrounds to win. That's kind of human, and fans will be fans.

I do object if there are too many of similar ethnic backgrounds judging. I'm not thinking collusion. I'm thinking similar thinking about owing more to the State then to the Sport.

Joe

Ah... see, that's because your country's skater is boring, IYO,(but at least your skater's known worldwide. NZ's only male skater finished in the bottom 5 -- This is what you get when the cold's in the S.Island, and the rinks and coaches are in the N.Island. Digressing ending.) whereas N.American's are just as good/better than everyone else, (barring the men.) So they've got no incentive to root for another country's skaters. (And there's also nationalism -- it's human nature.)

I'm overgeneralising a lot, so don't get too upset, it's bound to be true for some people.

Another fact is that N.America has so many skaters that you'll almost certainly find one to your liking, and at that point, the foreign equal will probably suffer.