Suddenly, Stephen Gogolev was just there.
Tall, lanky, a master of understatement, a greater master of quick rotation, Gogolev emerged during the Olympic season like a bursting bud that had been buried for a long demoralizing winter.
He’ll be going to his first world championship in Prague next week as a player, after having finished fifth at his first Olympics, the first major international competition of his life.
In the Olympic free skate, he sat in the leader’s chair for eons, and ended up finishing second in the long program.
His overall fifth-place finish was the best Olympic effort for Canadian men since Patrick Chan won silver at the 2018 Games.
Before this season, Gogolev’s personal best score was the 233.58 he set at a Junior Grand Prix in 2019. His Olympic score of 273.78 was 40.30 points higher than that.
While there, Gogolev’s TikTok account soared from 8,400 followers to 25,000 in a flash. He was the talk of the social media universe, teen girls admiring his thatch of dark blond hair, and his (their words) adorable rather awkward shyness.
Missing the closing ceremonies, Gogolev left the Olympics early to get back to schoolwork – he’s a student at the University of Toronto – but he also returned from Milan with an illness that kept him off the ice for a week.
To the rescue came choreographer coach Benoit Richaud – the French born former ice dancer who must hardly ever be home to work with Gogolev and change a few details that nobody but they would notice. (Richaud did choreography for 16 athletes from 13 countries at the Olympics.) But Richaud is much more to Gogolev than just a choreographer.
“I think I had just recovered when he came so it was good timing,” Gogolev said. “It was also very good timing in a sense because he really pushed me to get back into training – which I probably would have found a bit harder without him. There was quite a bit of benefit of him coming, especially after my sickness.”
It’s quite likely that Richaud is Gogolev’s muse, his support beam, the wind beneath his wings. Frustrated at his injuries and inconsistencies, Gogolev thought of hanging up his skates at one point, but he attended a camp in Europe with Richaud and spent time with Richaud’s greatest creation, Adam Siao Him Fa of France and Nika Egadze, of Georgia. There, Gogolev was in a group with some members that spoke Russian, like him.
Gogolev kept the “Mugzy’s Move” gangster program that Richaud had choreographed for him the previous year. And out of that summer experience came a tiny roar from Gogolev with a third place finish at the Cranberry Cup in early August in Boston.
After that Gogolev won Nebelhorn with a score of 90.19 for the short program and 164.87 for the free, for a total of 255.06. Two successful competitions in a row, with climbing scores. That 90.19 was a Hail Mary.
Skate Canada was just Skate Canada where he delivered an 86.13 in the short program and finished eighth overall (Ilia Malinin won.) At Finlandia, he finished third, for his first Grand Prix medal, with a healthy 89.35 for the short program and 164.26 for the free.
Numbers are great and all, but at Finlandia, Gogolev had finished second in the short program ahead of Japanese star Yuma Kagiyama. Overall, Gogolev was third behind Kagiyama and Siao Him Fa and 10 points ahead of two-time Canadian champion Roman Sadovsky.
He also finished ahead of Jason Brown, Sota Yamamoto, Matteo Rizzo, Mihhail Selevko, Deniss Vasiljevs.
Every competition was better than the last. But after a month or so in the weeds, training, Gogolev shocked everybody in the short program at the Canadian championships in Gatineau, Que. He skated like a different person. His “Mugzy’s Move” had reached another level on the performance scale. It was a side we had not seen of Gogolev. Richaud’s work finally taking hold?
He scored 99.60 for that tour de force, but of course, it was a domestic score. He earned Canada’s only spot for the Olympics. and because he was Canada’s only entrant, he had to do all four programs in the team and individual event at the Games – a heavy task.
This season, Gogolev has become more and more of a consistent skater. He leaves no doubt when he tackles a jump., His only miscue in Milan was a foot down on the triple Axel in the short program of the individual event, but it was his third performance in four days. It was still good enough for 10th place in a salty field.
“I did feel quite tired for the individual short program,” Gogolev said. “And it was a bit hard to find my focus in the individual short.
“But we had two days between the short program and the free skate, so I was able to take one of those days completely off. And then come back with the free program.”
Injuries and interruptions aside, Gogolev said his biggest obstacle has been the mental aspect, “especially knowing that I hadn’t competed consistently in a very long time [before this season],” he said.
It was hard for him, knowing that he was at a disadvantage to the rest of the skaters with less good mileage, but throughout the season, he’s built his reputation ad his world ranking as well.
His Olympic highlights were’: the entire Olympic experience, being in the Olympic village, the support he got from the Canadian team box during the team event, and those scores he got in the individual event, where he blasted his previous best total score by about 15 points and finished fifth.
“It was very exciting in a sense, and especially considering I knew if I skated my best, my expectations were somewhere around the top 10, top eight,” he said. “I don’t think I had imagined myself being in a top five position, and especially being less than two points away from third,” he said.
“But knowing that I gave it my all, it was like my personal best that I competed ever. I had no regrets whatsoever.”
Little has changed for him since he came back to Toronto from Milan. People recognized him at the Granite Club where he trains, and at the university. And he has been recognized in a restaurant. “It’s a pretty cool feeling,” he said. “Especially knowing that these people aren’t really involved in figure skating so I guess our impact has reached beyond the figure skating world.”
Over the season, and especially after the Olympics, his mindset and expectations have changed. “Ultimately the goal that you have in competition is to do your best and to perform the way you have been training,” he said. “I think throughout the season, it’s been confidence inspiring and… competing the way I did it’s definitely confidence inspiring.”
In Milan, Gogolev completed two different quads, the Salchow and toe loop, but he has always been capable of much more. At age 13, he became the first Canadian man to land a quad Lutz – and also the youngest.
On practice ice in Milan, he was seen landing a quad loop and a heart-stopping triple Axel Euler–quad Salchow, although in his free routines this season he has been doing triple Axel – Euler triple Salchow.
None of this means he will be throwing these crazy quads into his routines just yet.
But Prague will be a new, exciting adventure and Canadians have had success there in the past. In Prague, in 1962 – 64 years ago – Canadian Donald Jackson because the first man to land a triple Lutz on his way to a gold medal.
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