Feb. 10, 2000 5:51 PM Reuters

VIENNA, Feb 10 (Reuters) - A dazzling display of jumping carried 17-year-old Russian Evgeny Plushenko to the European men's title on Thursday, deposing the champion of the past two years Alexei Yagudin.

Plushenko, the St Petersburg prodigy trained by Yagudin's former coach Alexei Mishin, brought off a succession of spectacular leaps beginning with a quad toe loop-triple toe loop combination.

He just failed with a double loop at the end of it in a brave attempt at a three-jump combination, over-rotating the landing .

Seven more triple jumps followed in a varied and highly entertaining programme to Russian folk and gypsy music and earned Plushenko a collection of 10 5.9s and eight 5.8s from the nine judges for technique and artistry.

"It was difficult to skate tonight. I'm getting tired because it has been a long season," Plushenko said.

"I didn't know if my performance would be good enough. I knew Alexei could beat me because I made mistakes," Plushenko added, saying he had two-footed a triple axel besides the error on the double loop in the combination.

But Yagudin, skating last after Plushenko, could not match him. He began with a fine solo quad and did seven triples but the landings on three of them were not completely clean.

The double world champion's superior artistic talents could not rescue him on this occasion and all nine judges gave the verdict to Plushenko.

SERIES OF PROBLEMS

"I did what I was able to do at the moment. Now I have one month to prepare for the worlds. I think that will be enough -- if nothing else happens to me."

Yagudin has struggled with a series of problems. He broke one skate and hurt his ankle in a fall which forced him out of last month's Grand Prix finals and broke his hand in another training accident two weeks ago.

Plushenko by contrast has had a smooth training run, winning the Russian nationals from Yagudin late in December and the Grand Prix in his absence. His confidence has shone through all week.

The two Russians were the only skaters to successfully complete quadruple jumps in the final, just as they had been in the short programme on Tuesday.

Third place went to Dmitry Dmitrenko of Ukraine, his best championship performance since he won this title in his first appearance in 1993.

"I'm happy I did my best skating of the season," Dmitrenko said. "I have changed everything since 1993. I was very young then and had no respect for any skater, not even myself. Now I feel very different."

A third Russian, Alexander Abt, grabbed fourth spot, falling on his attempted quad but then achieving eight triples.

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