Favorite Figure Skating Memories: #5 Alexei Yagudin Wins Olympic Gold

Notice a theme? Many of my favorite skating memories were from the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City and the mens final was no exception. Alexei Yagudin of Russia gave a memorable performance in a win over his countryman and rival Evgeni Plushenko. His program to the music from The Man in the Iron Mask was a perfect combination of athleticism and artistry. He included a quad toe loop and a quad toe loop combination, but his jumping ability did not detract from his performance quality as it does with many other skaters. My favorite element of this program is the footwork which was almost ahead of its time. We see incredible footwork from a lot of skaters these days, but in 2002 under the old 6.0 judging system, footwork like this was rare.