Alexei Yagudin: “Hanyu’s fans are impossible to understand and it’s useless to talk to them.”
Interview with Alexei Yagudin. About shows, romance between Alexandra Trusova and Mark Kondratyuk and fans of Yuzuru Hanyu.
source: sport24.ru
What unusual places have you performed?
Alexei Yagudin: The most exotic was Singapore. I remember flying 16 hours and 45 minutes from New York. The plane was almost empty, there were 4 seats in a row. I thought I would sleep, but the armrests do not rise. It was funny – I sat alone in a row of four empty seats and watched 3 or 4 movies in a row on the built-in monitors. As a result, I sleept on the floor.
In Singapore, one of the Russian companies built ice right on the beach! And not plastic, but real – these were pipes and coolant. Such an ice arena under a tent in the heat of 30 degrees. We performed, then undressed, swam, put on costumes, skates and skated the next number.
The main thing is to have ice for the show. And quality of ice is not so important. Baikal is also really exotic. How many different videos are shot there, movies, tv-series. There are a lot of videos from Canada, the USA (in those states where winter also exists in reality, and not in stories of friends), guys skate on frozen lakes and rivers.
On social networks, you are actively arguing with Japanese fans of Yuzuru Hanyu. What happened?
Alexei Yagudin: Probably, this is a continuation of the story with Sasha Trusova, when I just shared my thoughts, and fans reacted sharply. And I did the same in the case of Ilia Malinin, when I said that this is the first clean quadruple Axel performed.
Let’s take music. There are only seven notes, it’s hard to come up with something new. But no, new hits are constantly being created. So in the case of Malinin, we have a new hit. Let’s see what will happen next. It’s one thing to be the king of training, and another thing is to show in competitions.
We see on social networks that Malinin has become the king of trainings. Even 4-4 combination alone worths a lot! Probably, Panin-Kolomenkin turned over in his place. And about the quadruple axel, Alexei Nikolaevich Mishin said that no one would do this jump cleanly in his lifetime. And here, please, here it is!
As for fans, loving and imitating something or someone causes shifts in the head (whistling, imitating the wind).
Hanyu’s fans are impossible to understand and it’s useless to talk to them. Popular skaters have furious fan clubs – “nothing exists for us except for Hanyu”, “nothing exists for us except for Trusova”, “neither Valieva, nor Shcherbakova, nor Medvedeva exists”, and so on. These are clans in social networks.
And I love talking to people like that! They talk about Yuzuru, and I answer them: “Who is this?” (smiles). And in all seriousness they begin to talk about him. Then they write hieroglyphs, in response I simply type a set of letters. They write to me, and I ask again: “Kazuko Tanaka?”. They are something “blah blah blah” and at the end “Yuzuru Hanyu”. Sometimes, just in response to them, I copy the text from the English Wikipedia about the life of an ant. Because it is useless to talk to them.
But I will not back down from my words about Malinin. I think that I said absolutely correctly, without diminishing the importance of the athlete’s achievements.
Are you talking about the case with Malinin and Trusova?
Alexei Yagudin: Yes. This applies to both Sasha and Yuzuru. In general, he was the only one who took two Olympic gold medals in an individual competitions, just a low bow, this is a really cool. But I have my own opinion about what happened at the Olympics, and I expressed it there. Yes, I said he was crazy, I just have a different vision. I’m not saying that it was wrong to do the quadruple axel, it’s not for me to decide – I’m not competing, I’m commenting. But in my opinion, when you realize that you can’t win, you come up with some reason for yourself, for example, I will go for a quadruple axel, I will be the first, I am pushing some boundaries! Well, what boundaries are you pushing if you don’t even have this element in training? I went to absolutely all practices, and I see when a person, even if he does not do something, has an element. But here it was clear that he didn’t have this element, not even close.
By the way, about Sasha Trusova, I later looked at the source, unfortunately, it often happens to me – it’s necessary to read where it came from. Yes, I said – but wouldn’t you like at least to skate a short program with a triple axel? Maybe sacrifice your desire to enter some books with another record, but just skate a little less quads? Don’t you want a gold medal? But Sasha’s words were actually not quite hers.
Well, that was the answer to the question.
Alexei Yagudin: Exactly. “Just try it, yeah.” In the original source, it was touched upon in passing. And other media presented that she is now almost learning a quintuple jump. Nevertheless, I think we saw an absolutely normal, healthy, human and sincere reaction of Sasha at the Olympics, when, it would seem, the best skate of a free program – and second place. She skated cleaner only in Chelyabinsk at the test skates. And everyone says, “How could she act like that?” This is absolutely normal. This is what is being accumulated that we do not show because no one should see it. Truly an outpouring of desperation. For Sasha Trusova, of course, it was a complete disappointment.
Returning to Hanyu’s fans, I love such jokes. I can immediately flip someone off, I absolutely do not hide this and do not hesitate, and I absolutely do not feel sorry for it, believe me. When they come to your page, in fact, home, and in your space they start to be rude … Well, I don’t go to anyone just like that and don’t say from the bullshit that your husband is a freak or I don’t like your ear. Once you came, get it. But I love humor.
The main news at the end of the off-season, judging by the resonance, is Trusova and Kondratiuk, their relationship. Is it ok that the most discussed is not jumps, but personal life?
Alexei Yagudin: Well, let them discuss it. To me it’s somehow…
Not interested?
Alexei Yagudin: Everyone there says: “Oh, was it a surprise?” In general, I don’t care who sleeps with whom – the main thing would be the results. If they enjoy spending time together, yes please. I can also say – a little unexpected, but damn it, cool! They are still such two children, I think. Children. Not the relationship of adults, but you know … And Sasha is so moderately shy, and Kondratiuk also reacts like a child to many more things. Listen, well, together and together.
Are love and relationships good for the result? In your experience maybe?
Alexei Yagudin: Tarasova always told me: “Lesha, you don’t need to have sex during the competitions! You’re wasting energy! Of course, this is a plus for girls, but it is not necessary for boys. (imitating Tatyana Anatolyevna’s voice) I don’t know. It happens that you are so inspired – I remember when I liked someone at school, I wanted to put on some kind of shirt right in the morning, brush my teeth again so that they were whiter. This relationship, conditional love, it pushes you. It can help, but someone will get tired under this pressure.
But Trusova is hyperinteresting for the media, Kondratiuk after the Olympics too. It would be strange if media didn’t write about them.
Recently, another event has taken place at the intersection of creativity and sports – Eurovision. It was discussed a lot, but did you watch it?
Alexei Yagudin: I did not watch. For me, this event has long been so politicized that all my friends said: “Ukraine will win.” Well we don’t mind, of course, but … I followed the Eurovision even in its best years casually. Now the World Hockey Championship is taking place, I watched the game of two unfriendly countries, and the Canadians played, and the Americans – and still you catch yourself thinking that there is no such impulse. Yes, we do not win every year, we have won world championships and the Olympics quite rarely. But I still want ours to be there, it’s not the same anymore. If any sport can be watched besides ours, then this is football. The Europa League final was crazy. That’s football! But football is generally a painful topic in our country.
And if you take figure skating, what are the prospects?
Alexei Yagudin: Now there will be a congress. Just yesterday I read that the President of the Hungarian Federation hopes for the participation of representatives of the Russian Federation. I also hope that they will return us, not competitions, but will allow our skaters to compete.
I’m just very glad that Wimbledon was deprived of rating points in tennis. And Thomas Bach said quite well the other day that they should not be punished for a Russian passport … This is really right, we should punish those who are guilty, but what does Russian athletes have to do with it, what do Stepanova-Bukin who are skating on our show, have to do with it? Not only were they deprived of one Olympics due to far-fetched doping, now they are generally deprived of the opportunity to compete. Okay, but there are Paralympic athletes who have already arrived in Beijing, they were treated absolutely inhumanly. What about juniors? And what do they have to do with it? They are 12-15 years old, they don’t understand what is happening at all, and they already have being deprived of a chance, it seems to me that this is generally … Someone will say: “Shut your filthy mouth and look at what is happening.” Yes, it is a difficult time, but it seems to me that sports should always be separated.
Do you have any hope that this will all end soon?
Alexei Yagudin: I’m an optimist. I have always been like this, and of course I want everything to end. I stand up for the athletes that I see on the show, these young guys. More than once I performed with them, they really do not even understand what is happening.
Related topics: Alexandra Trusova, Alexei Yagudin, Ilia Malinin, Mark Kondratyuk, Yuzuru Hanyu
What were Tarasova/Morozov and Sinitsina/Katsalapov doing in Ljygjniki next to Putin selebrating achievements in Ukraine a couple of months ago….?
Support Alexei Yagudin, well said!