| | VIENNA--As if he hasn't enough problems, Russian world champion Alexei Yagudin has a new handicap when he defends his European title this week -- a broken hand.
The 19-year-old St Petersburg skater arrived in Vienna with his right hand partly in plaster after he broke a metacarpel bone colliding with the boards in practice 12 days ago.
"It's disturbing when I skate but it is hurting less now," said Yagudin who never considered withdrawing. "I want to skate. I am strong."
It is the latest in a series of setbacks for the popular Russian, who was suspended from the Tom Collins Tour of Champions in the United States last June for alleged excessive drinking.
He admitted only to some drinking in his spare time and denied reports he was drunk on the ice.
But the Russian Skating Federation handed him a one-year suspended sentence with the threat of a long suspension if he transgressed again.
Then he was beaten by Evgeny Plushenko in the Russian Nationals in December and last month he broke a skate and slightly injured an achilles tendon during training in Moscow.
That forced him out of the Grand Prix finals in mid-month which Plushenko won impressively with a series of performances that earned him five perfect scores of 6.0.
Still, Yagudin seemed to be in good form on Sunday despite the partial cast, doing several quadruple jumps including one in combination with a triple toe loop as he prepared for the start of his battle with Plushenko on Monday.
His 17-year-old rival refused to be outdone. He achieved a three-jump combination of quadruple toe loop, triple toe loop, triple loop that left spectators in the Wiener Stadthalle amazed.
The men face a qualifying round on Monday to reduce the field of 36 entries to 30 for the event proper on Tuesday, when they skate the short program.
The leading 24 then go into Thursday night's free skating final.
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