Two-time Olympic champion in figure skating, Yevgeni Plushenko, has expressed his desire to train Olympic champions among his students.

According to Offsideplus.az, the athlete and his wife, Yana Rudkovskaya, own the Angels of Plushenko academy.

"Of course, our academy supports professional sports, and we want to nurture Olympic champions. This is a personal project, funded by ourselves. We have children from low-income, large families, as well as talented kids who train for free. We fully finance and support them. I take pride in that.

Why did we do this? Because when I was 11 years old and moved to St. Petersburg, we lived in communal rooms. At that time, Anton Sixarulidze and the recently deceased Artur Dmitriyev helped me a lot.

Currently, over 300 children are training in two schools. We have started from the initial preparation. Children were brought to me, and I would go on the ice with them at 6 AM. I wanted to see if I could work with the kids and whether I needed to do this. It was incredibly difficult; I trained from 6 AM to 6 PM. I put all my energy into it and couldn't cope. Now, however, I have found a balance.

You need to trust the coach. I have talented athletes, but some parents lose their minds. I tell them: "Come work with me, I will pay you, and you can train your child." I even take that step. This happens in other sports as well. My mother was like that. She knew figure skating better than Mishin. But once she trusted Alexey Nikolayevich, the results started to come.

It is worth noting that Yevgeni Plushenko's son, Alexander, will represent Azerbaijan in the upcoming five years.