This would be the beginning of a twelve-year rivalry with American legend Michelle Kwan, who won gold at this same event.

She qualified for Worlds along with silver medalist Olga Markova, by finishing ahead of Russian champion Maria Butyrskaya (7th).

At the 1995 World Championships, Slutskaya again fell in the short program but performed six triples in the next segment, finishing 5th in the free skating and 7th overall.

[citation needed] Slutskaya also won the Centennial on Ice, combining with Butyrskaya to hand Kwan her only defeat of the season.

She was awarded the bronze medal and stepped onto her first world podium, alongside Kwan (gold medalist) and Chen (silver).

In 1996–97, Slutskaya began her season by winning her first Champions Series title at the 1996 Skate Canada International, beating rising star Tara Lipinski.

Ranked fifth in the short program after her planned combination became a 2Lz-2T, Slutskaya performed five triples in the free skating and received two third-place votes (from the U.S. and Hungary) but placed fifth in the segment and overall.

[5] The next month, she won silver at the 1998 World Championships, coming back from a fall in the short program and successfully landing two triple-triple combinations in the free skating.

During the 1998–99 season, Slutskaya won a silver and two bronze medals on the Grand Prix series to qualify for her fourth Final.

She took bronze behind Tatiana Malinina and Butyrskaya at the Grand Prix Final, held in Saint Petersburg in March 1999.

In December 1999, she defeated Butyrskaya, the reigning world champion, to win her first Russian national title.

At the 2000 World Championships in Nice, France, Slutskaya won her qualifying pool over Kwan and placed second to Butyrskaya in the short program.

After winning her first Goodwill Games title, she finished second to Hughes at Skate Canada International and then took gold at the Cup of Russia.

At the Grand Prix Final, Slutskaya performed well to win the first two segments of the event, but her second free skating contained only three clean triples.

Russia, still somewhat aggrieved about the outcome of an earlier dispute over the pairs competition, filed a complaint against the result, but it was rejected shortly.

In the 2002–03 season, Slutskaya took silver at the 2002 NHK Trophy and bronze at the 2002 Cup of Russia before losing her national title to Elena Sokolova at the Russian Championships in December 2002.

The following month, she took silver at the Grand Prix Final in Saint Petersburg after placing first in one segment and second to Sasha Cohen in the other two.

Slutskaya decided not to compete at the 2003 World Championships after receiving news that her mother had fallen seriously ill, requiring a kidney transplant.

I got up — you can too.On 19 January 2006, Slutskaya won the European Championships for the seventh time, breaking the record she had shared with Sonja Henie and Katarina Witt to become the most successful ladies' skater at the event.

At the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, Slutskaya was considered the odds-on favorite to win the gold medal — 15-year-old Mao Asada, who had upset her at that season's Grand Prix Final, was barred from the event due to age regulations.

[11] Despite the claims she has not competed since the 2006 Torino Olympics so it seems clear she had in fact retired, but had not yet wanted to make it public.

On 10 April 2007, Slutskaya announced she was returning to Russia from the United States and would not participate in the 2007 Champions on Ice tour since she and her husband, Sergei, were expecting a child.

[19] In 2011, Slutskaya also participated in 2010 Winter Olympic champion Yuna Kim ice show All That Skate Summer.

In October 2012, Slutskaya competed in the first Medal Winner's Open, an event for Olympic and World medalists.

[22] In 2016, Slutskaya participated in the United Russia party primaries for nomination as a candidate for deputy of the Moscow Oblast Duma in the Pushkin single-mandate constituency No.

[25] They met each other three years earlier at a summer camp near Moscow, where Mikheev was a physical education instructor.