Related Links: Russia to send strong squad to European championships Plushenko nearly flawless in defeat of Yagudin Butyrskaya's car blown up in Moscow Slutskaya upsets shaky Butyrskaya Yagudin talks about drinking flap Bobek denied bye to U.S. Championships Forum: Who will triumph in Lyon?
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This month will also bring the Grand Prix Final in Lyon, France. It will be the first time this season that many of the world's top skaters will compete directly against one another. It's an event that might also set the tone for the major competitions of the season -- the European Championships in February and the World Championships in late March.

Already in the fall season we have seen some major shakeups in all four disciplines. What can we expect for the rest of the season?

Among the men, the 17-year-old Russian Evgeni Plushenko seems to be on a roll, winning all three of his Grand Prix competitions and delivering especially commanding performances at Cup of Russia and NHK Trophy. On top of that, Plushenko has already defeated reigning world champion Alexei Yagudin in their first direct matchup of the season, the Russian Championships in late December.

Yagudin also won all three of his Grand Prix events, but particularly in his early-season appearances at Skate America and Skate Canada he seemed to be having difficulties with stamina, struggling just to make it through his programs. Even when he is skating well technically, Yagudin's style tends to be on the ponderous side, and this season the judges seem to be more impressed with Plushenko's lightness and quickness on his feet.

In addition, Plushenko has been blessed this year with a long program that he not only interprets brilliantly, but that is extremely well-constructed from a technical point of view. Plushenko has been getting such deservedly high presentation marks for this program that it's going to be difficult for anyone to overtake him as long as he continues to jump as consistently as he has during the fall season.

The biggest surprise among the men so far this season, perhaps, was Michael Weiss' and Takeshi Honda's failure to qualify for the Grand Prix Final.

Weiss, who won a bronze medal at the World Championships last year, has been suffering from a stress fracture in his ankle that has limited his ability to practice his jumps, and it showed in his competition performances. Failing to make the Final might turn out to be a blessing in disguise, since it will give Weiss time off to heal his injury before the U.S. Championships in February, when he will face a stiff fight to defend his national title or qualify for the World Championships. The U.S. can send only two men to Worlds this year, and Tim Goebel and Matt Savoie passed Weiss in the overall Grand Prix series standings.

Evgeni Plushenko seems primed to wrest the world title from countryman Alexei Yagudin.(AP)

Honda's situation is even more disappointing. It is probably Honda, not Plushenko, who has the potential to put together the best overall package of jumps, style and choreography. An injury and inconsistent jumping hampered Honda last season, but many fans thought that if he could remain healthy this season he would pose a serious challenge for the world title. Instead, his problems with his jumps have continued. Trouble in the short program at Skate Canada meant he could do no better than third overall in that event, and at NHK Trophy it seemed that he never got his feet under him at all. Perhaps for Honda, too, failing to qualify for the Grand Prix Final might give him a better chance to succeed at the World Championships.

It's been a disappointing season thus far for fans of ladies' skating as well, with weak performances from many of the top competitors in their fall events. There have also been a dismaying number of skaters -- Tatyana Malinina, Vanessa Gusmeroli, Laetitia Hubert, Nicole Bobek, Tanja Szewczenko, Yulia Lavrenchuk -- missing all or part of the fall season due to injuries or health problems.

Michelle Kwan gave a fine performance at Skate America in October but looked tired and distracted a week later at Skate Canada, which she nonetheless won against a weak field. Although Maria Butyrskaya, who defeated Kwan at the World Championships last spring, won all three of her Grand Prix competitions, she was clearly struggling with her technical elements, looking stiff and uncomfortable on many jumps. Butyrskaya not only has to contend with meeting Kwan at the Grand Prix Final, but she's also facing strong competition from her Russian teammates.

Perhaps the best news for fans so far this season has been the return of Irina Slutskaya, who last year was skating so poorly that the Russian federation left her off the World Championships squad even though she was the silver medalist from the previous year at that event. This year Slutskaya appears fit and is approaching her skating with renewed enthusiasm and confidence. She might be struggling with consistency on some of her jumps, but her presentation skills have improved greatly over past years. At the recent Russian championships, it was Slutskaya -- not Butyrskaya -- who came away with the title.

The other challenge to Butyrskaya is coming from young Viktoria Volchkova, a 17-year-old in her first full season on the senior circuit. Volchkova appears to be the best technician among the Russian women, with a fresh and unaffectedly athletic style. At this point it would appear that her biggest weaknesses are a lack of sophistication and difficulty in her choreography, and plain inexperience with the pressures of high-level competition. Volchkova, too, has qualified for the Grand Prix Final, along with Yulia Soldatova, whom she defeated for the No. 3 spot at the Russian Championships. The relative placements of these two skaters at the Grand Prix Final might be a critical factor in the Russian federation's decision about who gets the third spot on its squads for the European and World championships.

The biggest shakeups of all this season have been in pairs and dance.

In pairs, all three teams from last year's World Championships podium -- Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze; Xue Shen and Hongbo Zhao; and Dorota Zagorska and Mariusz Siudek -- struggled through their fall competitions, with performances that ranged from bad to worse. Meanwhile, the best performances of the fall season came from the new team of Jamie Salé and David Pelletier from Canada, the veteran French team of Sarah Abitbol and Stephane Bernadis, and -- most consistently of all -- Maria Petrova and Alexei Tikhonov. And yet, Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze turned around and defeated Petrova and Tikhonov at the Russian Championships. It appears that the pairs competitions at the Grand Prix Final and World Championships are going to be wide open, with all three medals up for grabs.

In dance, the big story has been the surprising success of Italy's Barbara Fusar-Poli and Maurizio Margaglio. But there's another story going on as well -- the end of the Russian dynasty in dance.

Irina Lobacheva and Ilia Averbukh might be the only Russian dance team with a shot at a medal in Lyon.(AP)

With defending world champions Angelika Krylova and Oleg Ovsiannikov now almost certainly out for the remainder of the season due to Krylova's back problems, it is possible that this year there will be no Russian team at all on the dance podium at the World Championships. Irina Lobacheva and Ilia Averbukh still have an outside chance for a bronze, if they can pull an upset against Canada's Shae-Lynn Bourne and Victor Kraatz, but behind them there seems to be a near-total vacuum in Russian dance. It's unlikely that the next-ranked Russian dance team could even place in the top 10 at the World Championships, a far cry from the decades past when Russia and the Soviet Union apparently had an endless pipeline of championship-caliber dance teams.

What has happened to cause the pipeline to dry up? Under the Soviet regime, the best Russian skaters were always funneled into pairs and dance rather than singles. Now Russia has become a powerhouse in both men's and ladies' singles, but apparently at the expense of dance. Compounding the trouble, the top Russian dance coaches all fled to the U.S. with their top students after the collapse of the Soviet regime. This has deprived would-be ice dancers still in Russia access to quality coaching and exposure to a competitive training atmosphere.

So it is fitting, perhaps, that the end of the old century will mark the end of an era in ice dance. This season there will be new champions, and the start of new traditions.