2. as for the text...
27-year-old, has won five consecutive world championships?
(Is it many, by the way?..)
Yagudin had to retire, when he was 23 years young.
Yes, he is only 4 time world champion (1998, 1999, 2000, 2002) and an Olympic champion (2002)
= 5? Nearly consecutive? (What a bad luck for me.)
"living legend", a rock star-like charisma?
The skaters keep wearing Yagudin's costumes:
http://66.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lyxucp0ALz1r5ashao1_500.jpg Brian Joubert
https://twitter.com/USFigureSkating/status/494158344106426369/photo/1 Jason Brown
http://romain-par-caro-et-lui.skyrock.com/1324286086-Eux-une-vraie-complicite.html Romain Ponsart
In 2015 Stéphane Lambiel had an ice show, which was telling about a boy who saw Yagudin and decided to become a skater. And this is not a fantasy: Pitkeev says he watched the recording of Yagudin's Olympics and told his mom he wants "to jump like this too".
Tarasova tells, that the Americans made a big poster after Saltlake City Olympics. They took many small photos of the athlets - skiers, speed skaters - different athlets. And all these photos constituted a big portrait of Yagudin with the gold medal.
His face was the face of the Olympics. (Yes, we have only Tarasova's words. But she is not a child.)
When people decided to discuss 2001 Worlds, they said Yagudin didn't deserve even his silver medal, but one person also told this:
"The men jumped and jumped and jumped during the practices at this Worlds. Alexei & Plushenko were out there practicing jumps they had never done in competition. (And Irina Slutskaya did a three jump combo as well in her practice). But the Russian men's practice is one of the strongest memories I have of this event. Alexei had the crowd in the palm of his hand before the event started. He was signing autographs after one of the practices and signing autographs and signing . . . The announcer had asked "the skaters to please clear the ice" several times. And finally the announcer said, "Alexei, please clear the ice." He hopped up onto the edge of the boards, so that his skates were off the ice, and kept on signing autographs."
Even now, when Yagudin doesn't have many jumps, people can't take their eyes off him.
Or a man tells:
"The figure skating never was interesting for me, but when all the skaters were falling in Sochi, I decided to watch some previous Olympics. And I saw Yagudin, I was shocked, I fell in love with the skating (his skating)!!!"
It will be always like this. If people will see him, they will fall in love with the skating.
Rocking all over the World !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34GCx1xoVgg