Broken Arrow - Vienna 2000

.....Alexei is announced to the crowd.....

Simon Reed : So many times in his life Alexei Yagudin has faced this kind of pressure and he's somehow produced what it's needed. Just 19 years old from St. Petersburg. The double World champion, the double European champion ... can he make it a 3-timer here in Vienna? The music from the soundtrack of "Broken Arrow" ... Alexei Yagudin.

.....Music starts.....fading into La-la-land.....SNAP OUT OF IT!

S : First jump will be the quad ... And it was there!!!

Chris Howarth : Not in combination though...

.....Leading up to the triple lutz.....

C : OOOF!!!!

S : HE LANDED IT!!!!! It looked like he was going away. way off...triple lutz!!

S : Now his triple axel combination ... And again he lands it!! A little stutter at the end though - triple axel, triple toe.

.....At this point we're all thinking "isn't he lovely?!".....

S : Triple flip .... and there's the triple axel on its own!

C : It's quite incredible - he's doing these triple axels with virtually no preparation at all!!

.....Lands a triple loop...Chris and Simon too engrossed to comment methinks - just letting Alexei do the "talking"!!.... coming up to the triple salchow....

S : NO!! That's the move I think that's going to cost him the gold ... the triple salchow...

.....Program ends....Alexei mimes shooting himself in the head.

S : (laughs) Well, I think he fears the worst - (shot of Tatiana) - Tatiana Tarasova there who's guided him. The key thing that we didn't mention earlier on and we should have : he broke his wrist a couple of weeks ago bumping into a barrier falling on quad. (Alexei places his hand on his chest) You can see it there, on his right hand, right there, and that will have disrupted his training. But hold on, let's get things in perspective - could he possibly have beaten Plushenko? He hasn't lost it yet, and (laughs at some screaming Alexei fans going mental ) they don't think he's going to lose it, but he is surely?

.....All the slow motion replays on screen....

C : Yeah, I think the answer to your first question is he could have beaten Plushenko. He needed to go clean, he needed the quad with a triple in the combination and he needed everything else to be flawless because he's got the maturity. There were mistakes today and for that reason, you know, he lost it himself, but what a fantstic battle it was. There's a look at the quad, you can see a BIG inside edge but he fought really, really hard to get that. Fantastic duel netween these two. (Slow mo of the triple flip) Textbook positon on everything in the air.

S : He may have lost it tonight - we think he has, but he's proved himself a champion again. I reiterate what I said before he started : These guys are just not normal!!

C : No, you're right. To come out after all that commotion and put in performance like this was fantastic. This is when the draw doesn't work for you.

S : No. ( shows Tatiana's reacton to his attempt at the salchow) And that was the moment when the bottom fell out of her world. No, that eMOtion and that COMmotion was extraordinary and he'd have been aware that he had to be spot on. That's why when he put the pistol to his head at the end, he knew that he hadn't quite done enough.

.....Cuts back to the Kiss and Cry....

C : No, he really couldn't afford a mistake could he? The pressure was like none he's ever had before.

S : Well, he's had to wait his time Plushenko and Yagudin's been his master. (the marks come up and Alexei walks away) One thing he wants is OUT. It's not enough. He's that much of a perfectionist, broken wrist or no broken wrist, a performance like that - a quad and 6 triples - but he's gone because he can't take defeat. That's another reason why he's a champion because he will not accept a performance like that and a silver medal - 2nd right across the board. Very, very good, but on the night, beaten by a quite staggering performance by this man - just 17 years old - Evgeny Plushenko.