Onward to battle, the gladiators say. And that's what three-time world champion Alexei Yagudin did at the world figure skating championships last night.
Yagudin skated in spite of a build-up of fluid between the outer bones of his right foot -- the one on which he lands jumps. Doctors injected a freezing agent into the foot to deaden the sharp pain that caused him to stagger through the qualifying round, in which Yagudin had finished a shocking fifth on Monday.
He was amazing last night. The crowd knew his pain. Before he started, one fan yelled: "We love you Alexei."
"You're not the only one," yelled another.
Yagudin was a champ. He landed a quad-triple combination and everything else. He brought the house down. The capacity crowd began to scream 10 seconds before he finished. Yagudin may not win the world championship, but he won an adoring audience's hearts.
Yagudin skated to Gladiator in the qualifying round, and somehow actor Russell Crowe, who starred in the movie, saw his heartbreaking day and felt he had to brighten it. He sent Yagudin a photo of himself and wrote "Cheer up Alexei" on it. Yagudin has it in his hotel room.
Yagudin skated hurt Monday and immediately headed for the B.C. University hospital for X-rays, which showed no stress fracture. Because of the sharp pain in his foot, he feared he had one.
He had turned in a stellar practice on Sunday, and although he was in pain, Yagudin signed autographs for a long time after the session; he did not want to let on to his competitors that he was hurt. Later, he burst into tears for 15 minutes, said his agent, Dmitri Goryachkin.
Because of the pain, Yagudin could not warm up properly for his qualifying round on Monday. "He could not stretch properly. He could not walk, run or jump," Goryachkin said.
Canadian team doctor Jordan Leith found that even the slightest pressure on the area to the outside of his right foot was extremely painful.
Because Yagudin was in such pain, Dr. Leith was able to get him an appointment to have a magnetic resonance imaging. "We are very grateful to them," said Goryachkin. "Some people had to cancel appointments to let him have the MRI. It was such a nice thing to do for Alexei."
The MRI showed damage to the soft tissue of his foot, an inflammation to the foot and a fluid buildup between bones. The liquid buildup pushed against his muscles, causing pain.
"If you put the slightest pressure on it, he would almost lose consciousness," Goryachkin said.
Doctors recommended that Yagudin withdraw, and the skater considered it, but said he wanted to continue, because he was not a quitter.
Doctors gave Yagudin a freezing agent in his foot before a practice yesterday morning and he landed a quadruple toe loop-triple toe loop right in front of his rival Evgeny Plushenko, who was warming up by the boards for the next practice session.
He later did a second quad in the same spot. Goryachkin said although he felt no pain during the practice, he skated tensely, because he had been so used to feeling pain for the past four or five days.
Back home, the Russian media in St. Petersburg said Yagudin skated terribly because he had spent too much time partying the night before.
His mother, Zoya, was in tears at seeing the reports, because she had just flown home to St. Petersburg from the United States, where she knew of her son's injury.
His agent said Yagudin felt compelled to skate because he was worried that pulling out could cost Russia a spot for men at the Olympics, just like it did when Alexei Urmanov was forced to pull out of the 1997 world championships after the short program.