Once-dominant Russia likely to win only two medals, no gold, in figure skating

Russia no longer top figure skating power

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — For decades, the Russians struck fear in the hearts of other figure skaters. At the Vancouver Olympics, they’ve pretty much been striking out.

Celebrated Russian coaches are fleeing by the hundreds to other nations. Money from the old Soviet system has long dried up. People back home are demanding change. And the next Winter Games are coming to Sochi in four years.

Once dominant, the Russian program is now in disarray.

Russia will almost certainly leave Pacific Coliseum with only two medals to show for these games — Evgeni Plushenko’s silver in the men’s event, and Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin’s bronze in ice dance.

It would be the first time since 1964 that Russia or the Soviet Union skated home without gold. In pairs alone, they had won gold at 12 Olympics in a row. That streak is over.

“It is sad,” said Evgeni Platov, a two-time Olympic champion in ice dancing. “We used to have gold medals, and you can see the situation now.”

Skating is in the middle of a global power shift. China and Germany are dominant in pairs, North America in dance, Asia for the women and — well, just about everywhere but Russia for the men.

Russian coaches, the backbone of the old system, are taking their knowledge and techniques elsewhere — particularly where the money is. Platov estimates 700 are now scattered from Japan to Germany to New Jersey.

“Accomplished coaches and former champions are being asked to come back,” said Platov, who himself teaches in Princeton, N.J. “I was asked to come back also, and I know of others.”

Speculation was that 2006 gold medalist Plushenko was paid more than $1 million to come back after a three-year retirement. If he hadn’t, Russia would have had two non-contenders in Vancouver.

Other than that, money for figure skating is hard to come by. The old Soviet system that guaranteed ice time, training and travel expenses for the athletes is long gone. Facilities are far better in other countries, too.

“In ‘94, rinks were shutting down,” Platov recalled. “I had to buy gas for the Zamboni myself so we could skate.”

The Russian and partner Pasha Grishuk had to train in Delaware and Marlboro, Mass., before the 1998 Nagano Olympics. Things are getting better now, Platov said, and junior teams are improving. But the program still needs money.

“To reach the previous level, it could take eight to 10 years,” he said.

Or it might never happen.

With the popularity of the sport in Asia — watch it skyrocket in South Korea if Kim Yu-na wins the women’s gold medal Thursday night — and elsewhere, there’s little allure to staying in Russia or the former Soviet republics.

Skaters tend to go where training conditions and coaching are best — whether that’s working with Platov in Princeton or another ice dance gold medalist, Natalia Linichuk, in Aston, Pa., a Philadephia suburb.

Or skaters can go to northern New Jersey, where Nikolai Morozov, Galina Zmievskaya and 1992 men’s Olympic champ Victor Petrenko all work.

That small pocket in the Northeast hardly has exclusivity. Top Russian coaches are working all over the place. Japanese star Mao Asada is coached by Tatiana Tarasova, and Canada’s dance gold medalists, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, work with Igor Shpilband and Marina Zoueva.

There’s also a serious lack of Russian depth at the elite level.

Russia used to send three teams in pairs and dance who could make the Olympic medals podium. Now, it’s down to one contender in each discipline — and none among the women.

“I think it is only because a lot of Russian coaches, sportsmen, skaters move to North America,” Shabalin said.

It could also be that coaches and skaters in Russia are still having trouble adapting to the new judging system. Plushenko and coach Alexei Mishin blamed the points system for his loss to American Evan Lysacek, just as much as they criticized Lysacek for not attempting a quadruple jump.

Meantime, the decline of the Russian program has sparked outrage at home.

Three-time Olympic champion Irina Rodnina told a Russian newspaper Wednesday that Valentin Piseev, the head of the Russian skating federation, should step down.

“Piseev should resign after the disaster in Vancouver, but I do not believe in miracles,” Rodnina said. “We need a fresh and unbiased person in the post. And the new federation head should rather be a highly skilled manager than a figure skating specialist.”

Piseev was in a meeting and could not immediately be reached for comment by The Associated Press.

Russia’s slump could be bad for the entire sport simply because of how good its skaters can be. Think Alexei Yagudin’s dynamic footwork in Salt Lake City, Gordeeva and Grinkov’s lyrical long program in Calgary, Klimova and Ponomarenko’s sensual free dance in Albertville.

However, International Skating Union president Ottavio Cinquanta is not losing sleep over Russia.

“The ISU wants to see fair competition, and that is what we have seen here,” he said. “It doesn’t matter to me or the ISU which countries win, it matters that it is a good competition.

“You are seeing how the judging system works at these Olympics. The right skaters are winning.”

And they’re not Russian.