Nearly 16 years have passed since Oksana Grishuk and Evgeni Platov won gold in Nagano, Japan, making them the only duo in Olympic history to win two gold medals in ice dancing. Despite the passage of time, the Olympic flame still burns within these two ferocious competitors.

The Russian Olympic ice dancing champions overcome a warmup mishap with a countrywoman and glide into the lead after the compulsories.

Pasha Grishuk, 25, and Evgeny Platov, 30, have won all the competitions they have entered--21 in all--since capturing the Olympic gold medal in ice dancing at Lillehammer in 1994.

NAGANO Russia won another gold medal in figure skating Monday, which was about as astounding as the Zenkoji monks showing up at 7 o'clock sharp for their daily morning service.
Pasha Grishuk and Evgeny Platov successfully defended their Olympic ice dancing title, soundly beating their Russian rivals, Anjelika Krylova and Oleg Ovsyannikov, who took silver. Marina Anissina, a transplanted Russian, won bronze for France with her partner, Gwendal Peizerat.

Pasha Grishuk and Evgeny Platov of Russia claimed their second straight Olympic ice dancing gold medal Monday as they skated to a dramatic requiem at the Nagano Winter Games in central Japan.

NAGANO, Feb. 16 — Russians Pasha Grishuk and Evgeny Platov tacked a second straight Olympic gold ice dancing medal onto a string of four world championship victories at White Ring ice rink tonight. They have not lost a competition since before the 1994 Olympics, but they endured a season marred by three falls by Platov in three separate competitions — all of which they won, anyway.

It's so comforting to know that American sports stars aren't the only ones who go wiggy with fame. Russians PASHA GRISHUK and EVGENY PLATOV, right, the only ice dancers ever to win back-to-back Olympic gold medals, have always been as odd a match off the ice as they were perfect on it.

He is a busy man, is Evgeny Platov. Last Wednesday, he was in Moscow, contesting the finals of Dancing on Ice on Russian television. "I didn't win, but I got to rub shoulders with a beautiful model," he reflects. Barely had he finished his sessions with the paparazzi and signed autographs for numerous children, than he flew off to New Jersey the next morning to pursue his burgeoning career as a skating coach. By Friday, safely ensconced in his American penthouse, Platov was turning his attention to his latest work in progress - steering Scotland's Sinead and John Kerr to an Olympic medal in 2010 - and you suspect he will not be found wanting if it boils down to commitment, chutzpah and sheer charisma.

Now coached by the frost-and-fire amalgam of complexities, otherwise known as Evgeny Platov, a former maestro of his pursuit, John and Sinead's demeanour and body language has been significantly transformed under their mentor's direction. They no longer resemble kiddies in a candy store, but have developed a hauteur and maturity, which doesn't scream "Look at me", yet indicates that they appreciate they have paid their dues in the art of rinkmanship and have progressed to the stage where it is by no means fanciful to predict they will be on the medal podium by the 2009 World Championships and 2010 Olympics. Indeed, one suspects that if Platov continues to preach his mixture of stakhanovite values and sophisticated repertoires, they will be fighting for gongs even sooner than that.

Our comment:
no deductions for the two-time Olympic and 4-time World Champion who works 11 months a year on the ice and off the ice to bring his trainees to the podium
I spoke with Evgeny on the phone and was hardly able to remember my task of writing down the answers behind the sparkling flow of the conversation. Champions have this special energy that makes everything and everyone come alive.

Comment: Evgeny Platov, the former world and Olympic figure skating champion, is convinced that his charges, Sinead and John Kerr, have the quality necessary to achieve medal success at the 2010 Winter Olympics. Platov, who was in Edinburgh for a whistle-stop visit prior to flying over to Gothenburg with the Kerrs for this week's World Championships, has been working with the Scots for the last 18 months and says he has witnessed great improvements in their performances.

Evgeny Platov knows how demanding a Russian figure skating audience can be and he knows what it takes to impress Olympic judges.