Plushenko and Yagudin escape from a fire in Seoul

[bekalc]

Huh? Blame Mishin? What coach in his right mind wouldn't want to coach such skaters of emmense talent? Believe you me, I would! Smart man. He knew they'd be champions.

True, and Mishin's approach is the teamwork approach. But honestly, you really can't coach the best two skaters in the world... Because someone's going to get short changed...... And honestly, I think as a coach your previous skaters do deserve some loyalty. For example, Mishin know refuses to train Lambiel. Perhaps then I guess Mishin has learned: Two best skaters in the world, can't share one coach... Still given this I never understood why in some cases, Mishin seemed a little bit upset that Yagudin left. At the very least, Mishin seemed angry with Tarasova, and I don't really understand this because surely Mishin was a smart enough man to realize that Yagudin/Plushenko training mates for life wasn't going to work.

But then again, I guess the situation was always win/win for Mishin. In reality, I mean even though I was cheering for Yagudin back then, even I recognize that yes Mishin deserves a lot of credit for Yagudin being the Olympic champion he was.

Maybe Mishin's plan was always to let the first one who wanted to leave? Honestly, I think that it made more sense for Yagudin to leave anyways. He was older than Plushenko, and could handle the move a lot better. Also, I can't blame Mishin if he thought Plushenko had more potential back then, because I thought the same thing. Plushenko back then did have more charisma. But you know what, I think that Yagudin always was the better competitor than Plushenko. Even now, if both men were healthy, and I had to rely on one man to skate his best when the pressure is on, I'd take Yagudin. There's a reason Yagudin won 3/4 world titles and the Olympic title.

 

[hockeyfan228]

The Russian coach financial model is that a skater gives a coach a percentage of earnings throughout his/her career, including professional skating. Mishin coached both Yagudin and Plushenko at a time long before skating became more stable and popular in Russia, and before there were opportunities for non-US skaters with huge endorsement contracts to earn a lot of money from the ISU.

Yagudin and Plushenko were from the same country. There are different loyalty issues with training skaters from other countries, and Mishin gets enough flack for holding summer training camps for international skaters.

It would be financial suicide for Mishin to be "disloyal" to Plushenko, who is in the prime of his earning capability, to coach Lambiel, and it would be disloyal nationally for him to coach a competitor of his top Russian skater.

 

[bekalc]

The Russian coach financial model is that a skater gives a coach a percentage of earnings throughout his/her career, including professional skating. Mishin coached both Yagudin and Plushenko at a time long before skating became more stable and popular in Russia, and before there were opportunities for non-US skaters with huge endorsement contracts to earn a lot of money from the ISU.

Yagudin and Plushenko were from the same country. There are different loyalty issues with training skaters from other countries, and Mishin gets enough flack for holding summer training camps for international skaters.

It would be financial suicide for Mishin to be "disloyal" to Plushenko, who is in the prime of his earning capability, to coach Lambiel, and it would be disloyal nationally for him to coach a competitor of his top Russian skater.

Hey, I agree with Mishin saying no!

 

[Ptichka]

True, and Mishin's approach is the teamwork approach. But honestly, you really can't coach the best two skaters in the world... Because someone's going to get short changed......

Moskvina has been known to have multiple Olympic medalists - M&D and B&P in '92;K&D and B&S in '98. In fact, she believes that it's better to train two strong teams simultaneously.

And honestly, I think as a coach your previous skaters do deserve some loyalty. For example, Mishin know refuses to train Lambiel. Perhaps then I guess Mishin has learned: Two best skaters in the world, can't share one coach

There is a BIG difference. Plushenko started training at Mishin's camp as a young boy. While he was certainly promising, no one would exactly place bets on him; in fact, while Yagudin's promise was more evident by then, even he was largely an unknown. Both those skaters matured into the skating stars while training with Mishin. What was he supposed to do - through one of them overboard?!

 

[Ximena]

Besides Mishin has always believed that it's better to have to great skaters in one group because it pushes them to be better, and that's something Plushenko and Yagudin are the living proof of that.

For example right now Mishin has Dobrin and Lutai, who in paper seems to have the same skills, they are the same age, they are going to compete against each other and Lutai the other day said that it would only make him try harder and be better now that Dobrin is with them.

And I agree with Ptichka, Mishin did not start training Plush and Yags when they were already Worlds Champions. I mean Plush is with him since he is 11 and by that Yagudin was with Mishin which means Yagudin also got early there, so it's not like Mishin could have said "wow in 6 years these two are not going to be able to tolerate each other and one of them is going to leave!"

As for Mishin saying no to Lambiel, while the nationality thing plays a factor, it's not 100% true in this case. Mishin said that he told Lambiel he couldn't give him an answer to be his full time coach because Plushenko had not made a decision wether he wanted to come back or not. But had Plushenko said "I'm leaving amateurs", Mishin would have accepted Lambiel. Besides Mishin has trained tons of non-Russian skaters, Lambiel has said so himself that Mishin taught him how to do quads, also I think Verner, Chiper, Meier, Kostner and Lindemann have trained with him.

 

[hockeyfan228]

As for Mishin saying no to Lambiel, while the nationality thing plays a factor, it's not 100% true in this case. Mishin said that he told Lambiel he couldn't give him an answer to be his full time coach because Plushenko had not made a decision wether he wanted to come back or not. But had Plushenko said "I'm leaving amateurs", Mishin would have accepted Lambiel. Besides Mishin has trained tons of non-Russian skaters, Lambiel has said so himself that Mishin taught him how to do quads, also I think Verner, Chiper, Meier, Kostner and Lindemann have trained with him.

I wouldn't argue that it's the only reason, but there's a difference between training a contender -- either to your top pupil or to an upcoming one -- and training skaters that are not in the same ballpark.

 

[bekalc]

Actually now that I think about, in Russia as well it's not like there were a whole lot of coaches available back then. So Mishin was right to take both boys in...I also think that Mishin was right to refuse to drop Plushenko. Telling Yagudin either accept training with Plushenko or go, was the right answer. Maybe Yagudin thought it was Mishin choosing Plushenko, but in reality perhaps Mishin might have used the same words with Plushenko... According to Urmanov it's not true that Mishin favored Plushenko.

This being said, I don't blame Yagudin for leaving either. I think that it was most likely the right choice. Still, you wish that all sides could get over whatever happened.