Russians are coming
Only Kwan, Weiss can challenge at the worlds
Posted: Monday February 01, 1999 05:04 PM
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Kwan will be a definite threat to any hopes the Russians may entertain of sweeping worlds Jamie Squire/Allsport |
PRAGUE, Czech Republic (AP) -- Now that the Russians have conquered Europe, they can turn their attention to overcoming the rest of the world.
Right now, that appears to be only North Americans Michelle Kwan, Michael Weiss and Elvis Stojko.
Both Kwan and Weiss will compete in the U.S. championships next week, although Weiss has already qualified for the Grand Prix finals, which will be held the beginning of March. World champion Kwan is virtually certain to defend her title at the end of March in Helsinki, Finland.
Stojko, who missed part of the season because of an injury, forcing him to withdraw from the Grand Prix finals, captured the Canadian title over the weekend even though he fell in the short program.
But Stojko, Weiss and Kwan will be outnumbered by the Russians, who took the top three spots in both men and women's event in the European competition along with capturing the ice dance and pairs event. It was the third consecutive year the Russians swept all four European titles.
Now come the Grand Prix finals, where Russians make up more than half the field. Additionally, they will have home-ice advantage. The event will be held in St. Petersburg, Russia.
No less than four Russian men will be in the Grand Prix finals, all with impressive credentials.
-- Alexei Yagudin, who successfully defended his European title and is the current world champion. He retained his European title with an emotional routine in a winner-take-all free skate against his Russian teammates.
-- Yevgeny Plushenko, who beat Yagudin twice earlier in January and completed the quadruple-triple combination at the Europeans,
-- Alexei Urmanov, the 1994 Olympic champion returning to top form who was leading the other two entering the European free skating final.
-- Alexander Abt, who has arguably the most difficult program attempted in men's competition, including a triple axel-triple loop combination.
All the Russians have done quads in competition and Weiss will have to nail his own -- he's come close on several occasions -- to be able to have a chance against the Russians.
Kwan is not competing in the Grand Prix finals, choosing to pass up the six qualifying events leading up to it.
At worlds, she'll likely be facing Maria Butyrskaya, who looms to be Kwan's only threat.
Yet Butyrskaya may have two advantages.
She has had to face top competition from her Russian teammates in every meet this year, including a tough Russian nationals where at least six top skaters vied for the three spots that were virtually certain to be the top three in Europe.
The Russian field was so tough that Irina Slutskaya, the two-time European champion and silver medalist to Kwan, came in fourth at her nationals.
Additionally, Butyrskaya will have the advantage of passing through qualifying rounds that counted this year and affected other skaters.
Although Kwan has skated in preliminary rounds before, new ISU rules put a factor on this year's qualification, forcing the skaters to put more effort into them.
This took its toll on some skaters, noticeably Viktoria Volhkova, who came in third to Butyrskaya at the Europeans. In the finals, she was better than Butyrskaya for the first half of routine before tiring visibly and faltering.
Butyrskaya believes Kwan can be beaten.
"I think I can compete with Michelle Kwan," Butyrskaya said. "Of course, she has developed a reputation as someone who is unbeatable. Actually, her elements aren't that strong. Her advantage is she skates cleanly."
Butyrskaya cites her own improvement.
"For the last two years, I've been skating quite consistently," she said. "Some become Olympic champion at 16, but to me success came later. I had to fight with myself."
The only other threat to Russian domination may come from France.
French ice dancers Marina Anissina and Gwendel Peizerat are poised to upset the new European ice dancing champions Angelika Krylova and Oleg Ovsiannikov.
Russian pairs skating got an unexpected boost at Europeans when a couple training together only since June, Maria Petrova and Alexi Tikhonov, won the event after teammates and current world champion Yelena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze dropped out with the flu.
Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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