Coming off perhaps the greatest year any male figure skater has had, Alexei Yagudin is just getting started.
In the afterglow of a season that brought victory in every major competition, including Olympic gold and his fourth world championship, Yagudin has no thoughts of leaving competitive skating. He plans to spend more time than ever on the ice this summer on three tours, then compete in Skate America and Skate Canada during the fall.
Beyond that, he is not making any commitments, although it sounds as if the major events — the Grand Prix final in his native Russia and the world championships in Washington — remain very enticing.
The 22-year-old Yagudin laughs when told he sounds just like U.S. skating icon Michelle Kwan, who also expects to remain Olympic eligible — at least for the near future.
"I just want to do my job and it is really great that I like my job so much and what I am doing," Yagudin says. "Michelle also has been a four-time world champion, and I can understand how she is still competing and fighting. Sometimes you have got everything and it doesn't matter. She still pushes on. So do I.
"At some time, you realize you have everything in skating, and now you must skate for the people and take that role more seriously. That is how I feel."
Just a few years ago, Yagudin was considered something of a rebel. He even was thrown off the Champions on Ice tour by promoter Tom Collins after the skater made off-color remarks to a security guard at a show in New York, then offended a reporter in Denver.
But Yagudin has grown up and grown into the world's most popular male skater. He not only will return to and headline Collins' tour, he is on the Skate The Nation and Stars on Ice shows in Canada.
He has impressed everyone with his maturity and versatility, characteristics that defined his unbeaten season.
"He has a great quality," 1988 Olympic champion Brian Boitano says. "He moves across the ice very effortlessly — he almost floats on top of it."
Yagudin is taking his status quite seriously. Unlike his predecessors as Olympic champion, Alexei Urmanov and Ilia Kulik, who quickly disappeared from the competitive scene, Yagudin understands he is the leader of a highly skilled generation that appears ready to stretch the boundaries of the sport.
He talks about performing once-outlandish moves such as a quadruple axel or even a quad-quad combination. He wants to expand his musical horizons, perhaps incorporating hip-hop and other modern pieces, not using just classical themes.
And he embraces the responsibility of his position atop the skating world.
"Of course, I am more popular now because of I won the Olympics," the third straight Russian gold medalist says. "I want to skate and not disappoint people for the competitions and the shows on tour. I know it will be more serious off the ice, more responsibility as a skater, and I look forward to it."