Skate date

Fans at the skating show Sunday at the Halifax Metro Centre get a firsthand look at Olympians Alexei Yagudin, Todd Eldredge and Bourne and Kraatz.

ALEXEI YAGUDIN is writing a book about his life.

The 22-year-old Russian says the book, to be published this winter, will cover "all 18 years I have been skating, what I do away from the rink and what happened to me before."

Before would be prior to the 2001-2002 skating season in which Yagudin says he "finally got everything he ever wanted."

The charismatic skater won fans around the world while clinching first at the ISU Grand Prix in Kitchener, Ont., in December, the European Figure Skating Championships in Lausanne, Switzerland, in January, the Olympics in Salt Lake City in February and the World championships in Nagano, Japan, in March.

On Sunday at 4 p.m. at the Halifax Metro Centre, he brings this season's short program, Winter, in which he memorably scoops up some ice shavings from the rink and throws them in the air, to the first stop on the 12-city Stars on Ice tour.

He'll also do his Olympic exhibition number. But he won't do quads because jumping is difficult in rinks blackened to highlight the spectacular lighting that accompanies the shows.

Fan favourite Yagudin is joined by four-time world champion Kurt Browning, two-time Olympic silver medallist Brian Orser, two-time bronze medallist pairs skaters Isabelle Brasseur and Lloyd Eisler, 2002 silver medallist ice-dancers Shae-Lynn Bourne and Victor Kraatz, six-time American men's champion Todd Eldredge, 1992 Olympic gold medallist Kristi Yamaguchi, world silver medallist pairs skaters Jenni Meno and Todd Sand and Swiss spinning ace Lucinda Ruh, in the show produced by renowned choreographer Sandra Bezic.

"I felt relieved when the competitive season was over. It was hard to do emotionally," says Yagudin, from Sarnia, Ont, where he was taking part in the Skate The Nation tour. "Now it's hard physically. I might skate seven times in one show. But the competitive season is like dinner and the shows are like dessert."

While Olympic champions in the other three disciplines skipped the Worlds, Yagudin went because he was injured and couldn't compete at the NHK Trophy in Kumamoto, Japan in November and knew his Japanese fans were disappointed.

"And I really wanted to take my title back," he emphasizes. He won World Championships in 1998, 1999, and 2000, before finishing second to compatriot Evgeni Plushenko in 2001 in Vancouver, where he was hobbled with a foot injury.

And he was rewarded in Nagano with eight perfect sixes - one for technical merit and five for artistry in the short program and two for artistic merit in the free skate. He earned four sixes for artistic merit at the Olympics for his free skate to the theme from Gladiator.

While those results make it look like Yagudin is the judges' darling, that hasn't always been the case, he says, adding he has been a victim of Russian judges.

However, he steers clear of the ice-dance judging controversy that dogged the Worlds.

"Shae-Lynn and Victor are my friends but I don't know enough about ice dancing. I don't have the right to comment on the judging."

He also doesn't believe the judging system needs to be reformed, though he would like qualifying rounds held at World and Olympic championships to be dropped.

Kraatz has long been outspoken about the need for judging reform. And he and Bourne, who have won nine Canadian championships and four World bronze medals in addition to this year's silver, have been punished for speaking out.

When he watched Lithuanians Margarita Drobiazko and Povilas Vanagas drop to fourth at the Worlds, behind Israelis Galit Chait and Sergei Sakhnovski, he says he felt like he was watching an instant replay of the 1998 Olympics, when after winning two World bronzes, the Canadian champs were dropped to fourth.

"The Lithuanians voiced their opinion at the Olympics and were hurt at Worlds," he says from Baltimore, Md., where he and Bourne were taking part in the Champions on Ice tour.

That decision stunned skating commentators and athletes alike and virtually all the ice dancers signed a petition to protest the result, which they gave to the International Skating Union.

"The athletes know what's going on, know who should have won. We know our own potential and the potential of others. The system has to change."

Kraatz was initially reluctant to sign the letter because of past retribution by judges, but did eventually put pen to paper.

"I know what it feels like to blackmailed. We dealt with five years where we were consecutively branded as imposters."

He believes change will only come when judges are paid by the ISU and facing firing if they don't judge fairly.

The 31-year-old Kraatz and his 26-year-old partner were also disappointed to finish fourth at the Olympics behind the Italian bronze medal winners Barbara Fusar-Poli and Maurizio Margaglio, skaters whom he considers less accomplished.

"Once we were in fourth place after the compulsories and still in fourth place after the original dance we thought the likelihood of moving up was almost nil. We have a strong technical aspect and those are the technical parts.

"And no one knows what would have happened if we skated clean," he says, referring to the fall at the end of their high-flying Michael Jackson free dance.

"We still might not have placed in the medals if we were clean."

But what hurts more than finishing out of the medals, he says, is improving so much since the 1998 Olympics and still coming fourth.

"We skated exceptionally well at the Olympics. We'd been gearing up for 2002 since '98. We switched coaches from Natalia Dubova to Tatiana Tarasova and worked hard to get back on top after Shae Lynn's injury (they skipped most of the 2000 season after Bourne had knee surgery)."

In Halifax, Bourne and Kraatz will do a version of their show-stopping Michael Jackson Medley, which has been adapted for the smaller ice surfaces of show tours in Halifax They'll also do a new program to Enigma's Sadness, which Kraatz describes as music "like the monks sing in church with a modern backbeat."

"Shae Lynn is the spider and I'm the web. We do a lot of hydroblading (their signature move just above the ice) and the audiences in the U.S. have been going wild."

After the Stars On Ice Tour, which wraps up on May 14 in Vancouver, Bourne and Kraatz will rejoin Champions on Ice, which will keep them busy until late August. Then they'll decide whether they'll keep competing.

Kraatz, who loves the thrill of competition, would like to keep going, while Bourne prefers shows.

Off ice, he likes to "watch the beat on the street, go to Broadway shows and get ideas."

He also enjoys the outdoors, spending time in his Vancouver hometown hiking, swimming and boating.

Yagudin, who says he still hasn't decided if he will stay in the Olympic eligible ranks, enjoys playing tennis, bowling, and soccer, but doesn't like golfing.

After the Stars On Ice tour wraps, he'll rejoin the Skate The Nation Tour, then join Bourne and Kraatz in Champions On Ice.

Like the Canadian ice dance champs, Yagudin trains with Tarasova in Newington, Conn.. But he remains fiercely proud of his home country.

"I'm proud to be Russian, even if I live all over the world. I miss Russia, and I miss my mom, while I'm on tour," says Yagudin, who was born in Leningrad.

His mother, who lives in St. Petersburg, never watches him compete but expects her only child to call after every event. She will look after Yagudin's cocker spaniel, named Lawrence, after his Lawrence of Arabia, program while he tours this summer.