Russia's Olympic Hopefuls

Russia’s Olympic team expects to do at least as well in Salt Lake City as it did four years ago in Nagano. There, the team brought home nine gold medals.

In ice skating, Russia will claim three golds if all of its heavily-favored skaters deliver on general expectations. In men’s singles, Yevgeny Plyushchenko (see Russian Life May/June 2001) and Leonid Yagudin are among the best in the world. In doubles, watch Anton Sikharulidze  and Yelena Berezhnaya. In women’s singles, keep an eye on Irina Slutskaya. Unfortunately, Russia has recently lost its supremacy in ice dancing, and Ilya Averbukh and Irina Lobacheva are only expected to take a bronze medal.

In the biathlon, where “Russia could win as many as five medals,” boasted the optimistic Russian Olympic Committee Chairman Leonid Tyagachev, the man to count on is Pavel Rostovtsev.

The once high and mighty men’s ski team is now much weaker than its erstwhile predecessors. Yet, thanks to the advent of a rising star Mikhail Ivanov (not to be confused with this magazine’s editor) leads to the expectation of a medal in the 10 km or 30 km race. In women’s skiing, Yulia Chepalova (see Russian Life,  May/June 2001) is the one to watch. In the run-up to the Olympics, Chepalova was sent to Salt Lake on a “vanguard-reconnaissance” mission, to get a feeling for the high altitude conditions in which skiers are going to compete. And then there is Nagano heroine Larisa Lazutina, for whom these coming Olympics will likely be a swan song, perhaps a golden one.

Veteran skater Svetlana Zhurova is one of the main pretenders to gold in the 500 meter speed skating event. Zhurova is quitting sports after the Olympics and has said she is putting every ounce of her energy into claiming the top prize in this race.

Russian ice hockey fans are pinning their hopes on former USSR and then NHL star (now coach of the New Jersey Devils) Vyacheslav Fetisov, who has signed a contract with the Russian Olympic Committee to be the head hockey coach. Many Russian stars, including Pavel Bure, made  Fetisov’s appointment a pre-condition for their own participation.

Fetisov reported on his progress to President Vladimir Putin when the latter was in the US recently. Putin, like all Russians, is anxious to see Russia reclaim the prowess it had in world hockey 20 or 30 years ago; a repeat of Nagano (Russia took the silver) would be seen by many as a failure. At press time Fetisov had made up a list of some 30 candidates, including new NHL star forward Ilya Kovalchuk (see Russian Life, Sept/Oct 2001), with the hopes of putting together a Russian “dream team” for Salt Lake. But, Fetisov insists, the privilege of playing on the team is only for “those for whom playing for the national team is a matter of honor.”

As is often the case at the Olympics, the games in Salt Lake will surely reveal many unsung heroes, while the “sure things” of many long-time pretenders to gold will be fantastically upset. Isn’t that why we love sports?

Russian athletes who bring home a gold medal will receive $50,000 in prize money from the government; silver medalists will get $30,000 and bronze medalists $10,000.  RL