By the time Russia’s Alexei Yagudin took the ice Thursday night, the last of 24 skaters in the men’s free skate, he was competing only against himself.
None of those before him had performed a program that could challenge even a less-than-brilliant Yagudin.
And in the minds of the four judges who gave him four perfect 6.0s for presentation, Yagudin was brilliant. Never before had a singles skater received more than one perfect score in the Olympics.
“Before he skated, we understood no one could beat us,” said Tatiana Tarasova, Yagudin’s coach. “I still wanted him to be better than anyone else, to show we are the best.”
He became the third consecutive Russian man to win the Olympic title, following Alexei Urmanov and Ilia Kulik.
Russia’s Evgeny Plushenko moved up from fourth after the short program to take second. Timothy Goebel of Rolling Meadows was third, the first Olympic medal for a U.S. man since Paul Wylie’s silver in 1992. It was the first time Russian singles skaters had been 1-2 in the Olympics.
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Yagudin landed two quadruple jumps, one as part of a quad-triple-double combination, and six triples. Although he did not jump in the final 75 seconds of the 4-minute-30-second program, Yagudin was incontrovertibly the winner, sweeping the nine judges as he had in the short program.
“Alexei gave a splendid performance,” Plushenko said.
In a decision that seemed potentially as debatable as the one that led to controversy in the pairs, Goebel made Olympic history by landing three quadruple jumps yet did not get better technical marks than Plushenko, far from the form that had made him world champion a year ago.
Neither Goebel nor his coach, Frank Carroll, had any problem with the placements, even if the Australian and Finnish judges put Goebel behind Japan’s Takeshi Honda, who was second after the short program but had an unimpressive free skate without a quad. Honda finished fourth.
“I certainly think the results tonight were justified,” Goebel said.
The three U.S. entrants had talked bravely about being able to challenge the Russians, who had won the last four world titles. It turned out only Goebel was up to the challenge.
Six-time U.S. champion Todd Eldredge came back from a horrific short program to finish sixth after 10th and fourth places in his two previous Olympic appearances. Two-time U.S. champion Michael Weiss was an unremarkable seventh. Both Eldredge and Weiss have said they are quitting Olympic-style competition after this season.
Three world titles and an Olympic gold medal in the last four years certify Yagudin as one of the greatest skaters in history, especially because they came in the era after the elimination of compulsory figures made it harder to prop up defending champions.
“Somebody who has won that many world championships and the Olympic gold medal has proved he is great under pressure,” Carroll said of Yagudin. “The 6.0s prove he is a great artistic skater. Alexei combines the two things that are attractive in men’s skating: great athleticism and great artistry.”
He was the second straight men’s Olympic champion who left a previous coach in Russia to work with Tarasova, who had emigrated to the United States.
Tarasova, with a background in ice theater, has developed five Olympic dance champions but never coached a singles skater until Kulik left Moscow in 1996 to join her. Two years later, her choreographic skills had helped turn him from a mere technician into an Olympic champion.
Yagudin, 21, left St. Petersburg and coach Alexei Mishin after winning the 1998 world title. He pointedly refused to give any credit to Mishin despite sitting only 5 feet from the ex-coach at the news conference after the final.
“The gold medal just belongs to me and Tatiana,” Yagudin said.
Mishin, who now coaches Plushenko after once working with both, was more diplomatic.
“He felt my heart was more with Evgeny,” Mishin said.
There was a poignant moment Thursday when the event’s oldest competitor, 30-year-old Eldredge, finished his free skate just as the next oldest, 29-year-old Elvis Stojko of Canada, was coming onto the ice for his.
Stojko stopped to shake Eldredge’s hand and said, “Have a good skate,” as if to acknowledge the bond they shared after competing against each other in senior level competitions since 1990.
Eldredge, ninth after the short program, wound up far from the Olympic medal that will always remain missing from a resume with a world title and five other world medals. Stojko, a two-time Olympic silver medalist, was eighth.