Yagudin takes bows ... then back to Leafs

Russia's Alexei Yagudin is arguably figure skating's busiest performer.

IT'S tough for Olympic champion and avowed Maple Leafs fan Alexei Yagudin to catch all the NHL playoff action while triple lutzing his way across Canada. Take last night for example.

While the Russian figure-skating sensation was scoring huge ovations for his Stars on Ice performances at Winnipeg Arena, the Leafs were mixing it up with the Ottawa Senators in Game 4 of their Eastern semifinal.

But according to his IMG agent Dmitri Goryachkin, Yagudin is managing to keep tabs on his team.

"During the show with Stars on Ice, when it's not his number he runs to the TV (backstage) and watches the NHL games," Goryachkin reports.

While scheduling conflicts are nothing new for Yagudin, arguably the sport's busiest performer, his challenge next season is to figure out how to compete in top-flight events while also performing on the Stars on Ice winter tour. No other skater has ever tried to do both. The Stars troupe, traditionally comprised of professional skaters only, rehearses in September and November and criss-crosses the United States from December through March. Yagudin hopes to work a deal with Stars' producers that will allow him to compete as usual at two fall Grand Prixes -- Skate America and Skate Canada in Quebec City -- and at Europeans in January and the Worlds in March in Washington, D.C.

"I really like to compete. I like the feeling I have, if I win or if I lose, the adrenaline in my blood when I fight for myself, my coach," says Yagudin, the only one of Salt Lake's five gold-medal winners who entered the 2002 World figure skating championships in March.

Coming off one of the hottest seasons on record with wins at the Grand Prix Final, Europeans, Olympics and Worlds (his fourth victory there in five years), the 22-year-old athlete recognizes that defending his titles will be no cakewalk.

"I know it will be harder for me because everybody will be more hungry now to get the medals... But, I like what I'm doing in figure skating. I don't want to change my life right now," Yagudin says.

His life for the next three months includes a whirlwind of performances throughout western Canada and then across the U.S. with the Champions on Ice show, leaving little time for off-season training. Right after the Salt Lake Olympics, Yagudin and his coach Tatiana Tarasova devised a new short program for the 2002-2003 season. They plan to choreograph the long program in June during a short break from the U.S. tour.

"I have so many new ideas about programs, about music and I just need time to create new numbers," said Yagudin, who has lived and trained in the U.S. for four years. As for the proposed changes to the sport's scoring system, Yagudin offers, "There are no perfect systems. It's been OK what we had before. One judge was just pressured or something.

"Of course, they can change the system, but I think it will be pretty similar. I don't really care. I just have to do my own job."

It should not be surprising that Yagudin is giving little thought to the machinations of the International Skating Union right now.