Alexey Yagudin will miss the second season in a row?

Olympic champion Alexei Yagudin will miss a series of Grand Prix of the 2003/2004 season, which opens the Skate America tournament in Reding, Pennsylvania. Yagudin, was forced to abandon performances due to a chronic leg injury.

Recall that the Russian skater was supposed to take part in the third and fourth stages of the Grand Prix - the China Cup in Beijing and the Lalik Cup in Paris.

In October 2002, at the Skate America competitions, Alexei withdrew from an arbitrary program in connection with severe bouts of pain in the right thigh, and the Izvestia newspaper will remind. Doctors discovered a natural anomaly - the bones in the hip joint were too close in contact with each other, provoking pain.

In May, the athlete underwent surgery, but has not recovered so far. Now Yagudin’s participation in the upcoming European championships, which will be held from the second to eighth of February in Budapest, and at the world championship, which will begin on March 22 in Dortmund under a big question. Recall that Alexei also missed almost the entire last season without taking part in his main starts.

In the meantime, Yagudin, who not so long ago was detained for driving drunken condition. He turned to the authorities with a request to go through a special re -education program.

The world champion was detained by the police on August 31 in Hartford. Suspicions among road guards were caused by the fact that he moved too quickly and changed the lanes, not including the turning indicator. The followed analysis showed that the athlete’s alcohol level exceeds the permitted norm.

A special re -education program that the athlete must undergo is intended for violators detained in a condition for the first time. During the year, the athlete will have to attend 10-15 classes conducted by the Department of Psychiatry and Narcology of the state. After its successful passage, the record of the violation will be deleted from his case.