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Career Highlights

1980 - Alexei Yagudin is born in St. Petersburg, Russia.

1984 - Following doctors' advice to practice a sport because he was often sick, his mother takes him to skating lessons.

1994 - Alexei starts competing internationally and finishes on fourth place at Junior World Championships.

1996 - Alexei wins the World Junior Championships.

1997 - First participation at the World Championships and Alexei wins the bronze medal coached by Alexei Mishin.

1998 - Alexei competes in the Winter Olympics games fighting a severe case of pneumonia and finishes on fifth place. A month later he is the first Russian from the post-Soviet Russia to win the World Championships. During summer he changes his coach and moves to the States to train with Tatiana Tarasova.

1999 - Alexei wins second World title after winning 10 out of 12 competitions during the 1998 - 1999 season.

2000 - Alexei wins his third consecutive World title with a brand new program especially made for the Worlds.

2001 - Alexei competes with a foot injury at the Worlds and wins the silver medal.

2002 - Alexei wins the Olympic title with a brilliant performance that brought him four perfect 6.0 marks for the long program and then he wins his fourth Worlds title with an amount of 8 perfect 6.0 marks. He's the first male skater to win all four major events during one season: Grand Prix Final, Europeans, Olympics and Worlds.
In October 2002 he is diagnosed with a hip birth defect which forces him to withdraw from Skate America where he was leading after the short program.

2003 - In May Alexei undergoes hip surgery after touring with Stars on Ice. He starts coaching over summer and early fall. At the end of October he withdraws from the Grand Prix circuit and announces his retiring from eligible skating world. He does his last skate as an eligible skater during a farewell gala at Skate Canada.

2004 - For the second year in a row Alexei tours with Stars on Ice. His student Bian Joubert wins the European Championships and medal silver at the World Championships while his other student Andrei Griazev wins the Junior Worlds and finishes on 8th place at Europeans and 12th at Worlds. In November Alexei wins two professional competitions and at the end of December he publishes his autobiography Overcome in Japan.

2005 - Alexei's Passion program choreagraphed especially for the Stars on Ice tour includes a difficult acrobatic routine that takes place up in the air.

2006 - Alexei moves his domicile back to St. Petersburg, his hometown in Russia. Being the end of a full Olympic cycle he performs his famous Winter while on tour and a new sexy number Sway. In the fall he takes part in the Russian Stars on Ice TV show having Oksana Pushkina, former gymnast, as partner.

2007 - The year starts with the Stars on Ice tour in US followed by the one in Russia, Alexei skating a comic number, Blues for Klook, and a flamenco one called Legend. In July he has a hip replacement operation in the States with a titanium joint. The recovery he spends it participating in the second season of the Russian TV show this time called Ice Age in which he is paired with the singer Viktoria Dayneko with whom he also records a song, Igolka, at the end of the year.

2008 - The Ice Age tour in the spring is followed by Alexei's debut on the stage in a theatre play in which he plays a Russian President. His career as an actor continues with a part in Russian skating TV soap-opera My Hot Ice. In the fall he participates in the second season of Ice Age, this time his partener being actress Valeria Lanskaya.

The future is still open!

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