ICE SKATING: Skate Canada

Skate Canada November 2, 2000 - November 5, 2000 Mississauga, Ontario, Canada

Skate Canada, the next event on the Grand Prix series, would be an important redeeming event for the three-time and reigning World Champion, Alexei Yagudin. Yagudin had had a terrible start to his season, losing twice in a row: to Todd Eldredge at the Masters of Figure Skating Competition, and to Timothy Goebel at Skate America. Granted, Yagudin had lost Skate America because he had great trouble skating in the high altitude, but these two losses had chipped away at his confident competitive spirit.

The three-time (94, 95, and 97) World Champion, Elvis Stojko, was supposed to be Yagudin's biggest challenge at Skate Canada, but Stojko was injured and pulled out of the competition. The next largest threat was Todd Eldredge, who finished third behind Yagudin at Skate America. This would be Eldredge's second and final Grand Prix scoring event. It was Yagudin's first, and he was hoping to take home first place and 12 Grand Prix points.

Yagudin was relieved to be out of the altitude at Colorado Springs, but he discovered a new problem at Skate Canada - the ice. The arena was smaller than the World Arena at Colorado Springs, and the ice felt much crunchier and harder than the ice he is accustomed to.

Yagudin was very tense during the short program, probably because his confidence was fading. He did land a quad toe - double toe combination (the ending of the double toe had a small turnout), triple axel, and triple lutz, but his landings were shaky and he never seemed to truly let go during the program, which was set to Chopin's "Etude of Revolution." Yagudin seemed constantly nervous and ill at ease. It was obvious that the bad start to the season had made him very insecure at Skate Canada.

Todd Eldredge, recovering from a back injury he sustained at Skate America, when he collided with another skater during practice, was second after the short program. He landed a triple axel, triple flip - triple toe, and triple lutz. His program was far easier than Yagudin's program, but it was clean. Eldredge was placed behind Yagudin because his base mark (the mark which the scores start from) was much lower because of the level of difficulty of the program.

Third was Japan's Takeshi Honda, who trains with Doug Leigh, Elvis Stojko's coach. Honda completed a quad toe, but stepped out of the triple toe combination. He struggled a bit with the triple lutz, but had a very nice triple axel.

The long program would tell the rest of the story. In an otherwise disappointing night of skating, Alexei Yagudin brought the house down, and the crowd to its feet.

Yagudin skated last, and every skater before him was lackluster. Todd Eldredge started things off, and, while he made no major mistakes, he was somewhat flat. Eldredge put his hand down on the quad and turned out of it, but had no other major errors. He landed both of his triple axels and other triples, but had no triple - triple combination.

Takeshi Honda had a terrible time with his long program. Known as a great talent who is just unable to pull it together under pressure, Honda lived up to his reputation. He tripled his quad attempt and fell on some other jumps. The program has so much potential, but Honda made too many mistakes to hold himself in third place, much less move up. He finished in fifth place.

The door was open for the fourth place man, Canada's Ben Ferreira, to move up, but he too made some small errors on most of his jumps, stepping out of them or turning out. He had a nice character driven program, but he could not pull up onto the podium, and finished fourth.

Todd Eldredge's teammate Matthew Savoie took advantage of the other faltering performances to move from fifth place to third place overall. His program did include a fall on a triple axel, but he had few huge mistakes besides this. Savoie's program was well enough put together and skated that he made it onto the podium.

Yagudin was the last to skate, and it was worth the wait. Yagudin was phenomenal. He was finally able to put a shaky start to the season behind him and attack his program with the power and the emotion that he was capable of. Technically, he was perfect, landing a quad-triple, triple axel - triple toe, a second triple axel, and all of his other jumps. After landing his last jump, the triple salchow, Yagudin pumped his fists. He knew he had done it.

Yagudin then focused on really selling his program and performing his footwork, which was innovative and extremely well executed. Yagudin was still flying high at the end of his program, and that was surprising since he has always had problems with stamina at the end of his long programs. His coach Tatiana Tarasova was so excited she was screaming at him from the sidelines, cheering him on. At the last beat of music, Yagudin put his hands to his face, overwhelmed with relief and joy. The audience had been standing and applauding throughout the last forty seconds of his program.

Yagudin skated to music from the movie "Gladiator," and he felt he identified with the main character of the movie, because he remained true to himself despite difficult circumstances. To give off a performance such as this one, Yagudin truly became the Gladiator in every way, technically and artistically. He received straight 5.9s across the board for technical merit, but what was truly amazing were his presentation scores. Yagudin received all 5.9s…and two perfect 6.0s! At those scores, Yagudin leapt to his feet and hugged his coach, Tatiana Tarasova, and his assistant coach, Nikolai Morozov.

In a technically perfectly skated program, the judges still recognized, above all, that Yagudin had expressed the choreography and the music with all his heart. It was a true victory for Yagudin, and it also made clear the principle of figure skating: Technical prowess is necessary, but presentation clinches the victory.