p.98
XIV – Plushenko and Yagudin. Whom does Mishin prefer?
With Yagudin we are neither friends nor enemies. One can just say, there was such a skater Alexey Yagudin and there is such a skater Evgeni Plushenko. I speak about him in past time, because he retired and went to the professionals and I am still an amateur.
For a long time I was the youngest one in Mishin’s team. Before me there were the seniors – the Olympic champion Alexei Urmanov, Oleg Tataurov, Ruslan Novoseltsev, Alexey Yagudin. And at the very end – me.
Yagudin is only three years elder than me, but at that age it was a whole abyss. We are different in body too. I am thin and slender and he is thickset, powerful, physically stronger. This was important.
Alexey Nikolaevich, like all the coaches, had priorities. First of all he trained the most perspective ones,
p.99
he went to competitions with Urmanov and Tataurov. Next, he paid attention to Yagudin.
To me Mishin usually said:
- Watch the seniors and do your best.
They did not rely on me at that time. If I emerge, it’s all right. If not, then not. I was not privileged, I did not receive any attention. Now I understand why. I was eleven and “a dark horse”. Nobody knew what would happen with me. May be after half an year I would stop skating at all. Why lose strength and time on me? But at that time I was insulted from this.
All right, I agreed with the attention paid to the seniors, but why to Yagudin too? He received the best programs, the best music, much attention. And for me there were only some odds and ends left.
Mishin went very often to competitions and took Yagudin with him. Before the departure he set me a task :
- I am going away. You have to learn the jump till I return.
Today, if Mishin goes away, there are other coaches left with the children. They can explain and help. For me there was nobody. I was training alone, lost and useless.
I was training regularly though, no matter if Mishin was there or not. I jumped till I was exhausted to death. If I could not make the jump, I did it again and again.
My choreographer Evgeni Dimitrievich Serezhnikov came to the ice rink. When he saw how I took pains, he tried to help me, to show me something. Although he was a theatre choreographer and did not know the technique of figure skating, his support was very important for me, I felt well. Sometimes mom gave advices too.
p.100
And I succeeded to do the jump!
I was eager for Alexey Nikolaevich to come back, so that I can show him my jump.
He came:
- Well, let’s see what you have done!
And sometimes he praised me.
I tried all the time to show everybody, that I am better. Sometimes it seemed to me that they underestimated me.
They continued to give Yagudin the best programs. I have already said this was natural – he was three years elder, started to participate at European and World championships earlier. He had already had titles, which I was only dreaming of.
Sometimes Alexey Nikolaevich went away only with the seniors. Then we with Yagudin were left alone. Naturally, he wanted to win. I – too. Moreover I had to overtake and leave behind exactly him. For that I had to train more.
If he went out on the ice, I had to go out too. If he made a jump, I had to make a cascade from two jumps. He made the step sequence, I had to make it too. The air sparkled with the strain.
All the time I was trying to do more than him. May be this helped me to succeed then.
Of course, Alexey was angry. He already saw in me his future rival. I could feel it with my skin.
Moreover, Yagudin was from Petersburg, a native one. And I was from some Volgograd. At this time the Moscow figure skaters trained in Moscow, those from Petersburg were mainly in Petersburg. There were only few strangers, and I was among them.
- Go to your Volgograd! – this was the phrase I heard all the time. Most often it was uttered by Yagudin.
p.101
Who was I for him? The boy from the suburbs, an upstart.
Later, when I started winning at Russian, European and World championships, nobody dared to say that I had come from the suburbs.
Although Yagudin was elder and more experienced than me, he felt the pressure from me. I disturbed him, but for me he was a help. It was for him as if I appeared and started circling around him at first; then I started to sting – first a little, then stronger and at the end I hit the bull’s eye.
Of course, I received blows from him, as from an elder and stronger one. And he did this quietly.
For example, after training we played football. I make a goal and I receive a hit on the back of my leg. I knew who it was without even looking back.
I grew up and started catching up with Yagudin. I was breathing in his neck. Eventually, Alexey Nikolaevich noticed my potential and started spending more time on me. This made Yagudin nervous and upset. It influenced his results. At the end he went away to another coach. It was Tatiana Tarasova in America. She was the coach of the Olympic champion Ilia Kulik. But at this time Kulik went to the professionals and she had a vacant place. So Yagudin took it.
I always keep out of the coach’s business with the other sportsmen. I try to do my work honestly, to train and become better.
Yagudin’s going away from Mishin was a shock for me, it was completely unexpected. I could not believe it till I saw with my own eyes that Yagudin was not at the training.
p.102
Frankly, I was glad, that Yagudin left. I was very glad, I will not hide this.
But with his leaving the team there started a new kind of struggle between us, a more cruel one. We were the first at all competitions – it was either me or him. We were fighting one against the other. The main thing at the competitions was not who would do the jump, but who would do it more clearly. The winner was the one, whose jumps were clear and whose performance was faultless.
In one of the press-conferences Yagudin said:
- I was trained by Tarasova.
This is not true.
Yagudin became an European and World champion having been trained by Mishin. He was brought up by Alexey Nikolaevich, who taught him skating and technique. He gave him actually everything.
In sport there is everything. It happens that sportsmen change their coach. When you realize that your relations with the coach become worse, that he doesn’t spend enough time with you; that the juniors grow up to be your rivals and start overtaking you. But you don’t have to be ungrateful to the person who has made you a champion. To go away and start speaking wrong – this is not manlike.
I can imagine how Mishin felt hearing those words. How offended he must have been.
Alexey Nikolaevich was betrayed by one more student.
Andrei Griazev came from Perm and Mishin took him. And did everything for him – taught him technique, how to do rotations, brought him to a certain level.
Andrei communicated with Yagudin in the time when Yagudin already lived in America. And he started thinking , that Tarasova is a good one and America is super.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cB2PDzouzSY - Plushenko, Portrait of A Star - Plushenko vs Yagudin (6)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qdWHrP37zU - Plushenko, Portrait of A Star - Plushenko vs Yagudin (7)
How can anyone hate Sex Bomb? It's pure artistry! 
! A meeting of fans
Kobe ! #fantasyonice2017
#FaOI2017神戸
@laliga #LaLigaInJapan
