Wow. That is just an amazing level of stupidity. Why would anyone do such a thing? :scratch:
I guess Sergei Voronov's ticket to Vancouver has just been confirmed, if it wasn't already. And this will probably be the end of Lutai's skating career.
I don't think he would have done it if he weren't drunk. I mean, how was he planning to bring the stolen car back to Russia, in his back-pocket?Well maybe he didnt mean to steal steal? Maybe he was just utterly pissed and decided to be stupid for fun?
Andrei, Andrei, What happened? I'd love to hear your side of the story. I can't imagine losing in SA would drive one to drink, but maybe Mischin could. Good luck to Andrei, when he was on, he was first rate.
Awful news.
He needs a good lawyer. Hope he gets one.
ITA.What a waste of talent!
Some more excerpts from plushyta's links:
"It's not like him, he doesn't even drink!" say the managers and producers of ice shows, and even the workers of the Yubileiny rink where the athlete trains.
"Andrei is always so proper, calm, and well behaved", recalls Petersburg coach Alla Pyatova. "His mom is a sweety, and the family is of the intelligentsia. Though Lutai did live at the boarding school dorm for a while, so he might have picked up bad habits there, though I doubt it - his parents and sister visited him all the time, there wasn't much room for him to hide."
Andrei's site describes his attitude to alcohol thus: "I don't drink". I then did not just let go, but it did it so monumentally? Figure skating insiders suppose that the always emotional Alexei Mishin could have poured fuel on the flame; after the Skate America failure, he was sure to have been furious with Lutai.
"Mishin could have screamed at him so badly, that the kid drowned his sorrows in a drink, and got drunk to quickly because he's not used to it", says one of his Petersburg coaches.