Yesterday, the 56th anniversary of the two-time Olympic champion Evgeny Platov celebrated. Sports tells how the son of a sailor from Odessa achieved rare heights in figure skating, holding the record for the number of Olympic gold medals for 20 years.
He was born in Odessa about seven years before the first ice rink appeared there . In a southern city without figure skating traditions, the boy had a one in a million chance to grow into a great champion, and Platov did not miss him.
At first it was a piece of frozen water that leaked from a pump in the courtyard of the house in winter. The first skates were white girls' skates, because there were no black ones in the local store. And Zhenya wanted to ride — he somehow saw the sliding figures of people in the flooded Dyukovsky park. The magic of the peeped movement was superimposed on a fanatical love for hockey, and from that moment the story of Platov the figure skater began. Although he suffered in hockey for a long time — in 1980, when the USSR national team lost the Olympics to the Americans, a real hysteria happened to 13-year-old Zhenya, which he still remembers.
The first time he trained so-so. They didn’t take me to the group right away — there was too much excitement in the wake of the all-Soviet interest in figure skating. Then there was bronze at the first children's competitions. And then a break for almost a year. His father was a sailor and went on a voyage, his mother worked, so there was no one to take her son to the other end of the city. So they told the future two-time Olympic champion: your figure skating is over. br>Here, in principle, our story could have ended. But in winter, at the dacha of Zhenya's grandparents, the skating rink was flooded again. In addition to the fact that this gave him wild popularity among friends who gathered at the Platovs for dances, Zhenya remembered how he liked to ride. He realized how favorably figure skating differs from the monotonous training in athletics, where he was promised a great future.
In general, despite all the stumps and decks through which his childhood career went, outstanding natural data in coordination and endurance paid off. When, after a break, Platov returned to the skating rink, they took him, as they say, without exams. So he was sent to dance, giving out the best partner in the city — Elena Krykanova. Already in 1983 they will win the junior world championship, but before that they will have time to move to Moscow.It was hard: from the sea coast and cheerful Odessa streets to the metropolitan dullness and dampness. Zhenya lived with a partner in a sports boarding school, went to the skating rink in Sokolniki, and trained with Natalia Dubova. After the third gold of the World Junior Championship, the couple broke up at the decision of the coach. It seemed to Dubova that Elena lost the fire in her eyes, and Zhenya agreed with her.
Before finding his ideal partner, Platov skated for three more seasons with Larisa Fedorinova. They started off briskly, but then stalled, because Larisa was having a hard time growing up. Anthropometric dissonance appeared, and Zhenya's knees hurt for the first time. This pain would later pass with him through his entire career.
In order to pair up with Oksana Grischuk, Platov was offered to almost arrange a fictitious marriage with her. At that time, it was difficult for a skater to leave one coach for another, and Grischuk skated in a group with Linichuk. But still there was no marriage.Probably, Alexander Pushkin, when he wrote his lines “they came together — water and fire”, foresaw the future, the appearance of dancing on ice and the most controversial duet of all time — Oksana Grischuk/Evgeny Platov. Oksana was the very fire flickering in the vessel. She flared up, did everything in her own way, managed to repeat thirty times, while the partner methodically learned the element once. Outwardly, Oksana was like an unbridled wild mare next to the academically polished Zhenya. “A plague jumping in all directions, and I’m a classic who can’t catch it in any way,” Platov himself picked up such epithets in an interview with correspondent Andrei Simonenko, describing the beginning of their cooperation with Oksana.
Zhenya made the first knee surgery two years before the first Olympics. And she was also preceded by the half-life of the couple — Grischuk constantly cursed with Dubova, so at one fine moment she was expelled from the group with a scandal. Platov was given a young Tatyana Navka and promised that the next Olympic cycle would definitely be his. In the meantime, the time of Maya Usova and Alexander Zhulin.
Fortunately for everyone, after some time Oksana persuaded Zhenya to return to her and go to the group of Natalia Linichuk. Linichuk gave them the legendary rock and roll, which gave the couple their first Olympic gold.
It is incomprehensible to the mind how they managed to take the second. This was after four years of hard mentally and physically training. Zhenya's knees hurt like hell. Oksana dreamed of Hollywood, changed her image, called herself Pasha, so that she would not be confused with another figure skater Oksana Baiul, and generally experienced a deep personality crisis. Before Nagano, Grischuk/Platov went to Tatyana Tarasova — it seemed to them that this was the only chance for salvation. No other collaboration could provide such inspiration and motivation. Tarasova literally towed them on herself. After the gold medal in Japan, wrested from Anzhelika Krylova and Oleg Ovsyannikov in a bitter struggle, Oksana and Zhenya wept helplessly. Not like champions with happiness, but like two tired, sick people through and through./
At that time, after great success, the athletes had one profitable way — to compete in the professional category. This gave big prizes, invitations to profitable ice shows and even, if you were lucky, advertising contracts. Moreover, it was work for the North American public — figure skating was at its peak there, and the best athletes gathered full halls.At the very moment when it was time to cut coupons and enjoy his popularity, Platov was left alone. The partner immediately after the 1998 Games left for America to build a career. Platov, on the other hand, paired up with Maya Usova — she was also left alone after her husband and part-time partner Alexander Zhulin went to Tatyana Navka. They skated professionally for three seasons, including winning the World Championship.
After the end of his career as an athlete, Evgeny Platov became a coach. He remained to live and work in America in the state of New Jersey. His most successful students at the moment can be considered the British couple Sinead Kerr and John Kerr, who reached the podium of the European Championship, as well as Penny Coomes and Nicholas Buckland. Platov leads an almost non-public life and does not appear in any gossip column, perhaps also because he practically does not work with Russian figure skaters.
His achievement with Oksana Grischuk is two Olympic gold medals in ice dancing — remained unique for 20 years. Only in 2018, Canadian champions Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir managed to repeat it.