@alena_hu @lala630312 @PlushenkoNews Do not apologize. It is an honor when a figure skating fan reads an article, tweet or commentary.

I first saw Plushenko compete live at Skate America in Detroit in 1997. I remember saying at a practice, ‘Who put that poor little blonde boy in the terrible green costume?’ Then he started to skate.

There is little doubt Plushenko is the best men’s competitor of his era and then some. In my eyes, he takes the nod over Yagudin due to the length of his career. His duel with Yagudin at the 2000 Europeans was the best figure skating contest I ever witnessed live. For once I had a seat behind the panel, and the skaters’ command of their triple Axel-triple toe combinations was such they locked eyes with select judges as they landed their jumps. Like everyone else, I also watched Plushenko win gold by an astounding margin in 2006 and come within a hair of repeating in 2010.

So, it’s disappointing – not sad or tragic, but disappointing – to see a clearly injured Plushenko perform under par at an event he has won seven times. I was not present at Europeans, I watched video after the fact, but European colleagues wrote of Plushenko speaking to the media about his painful back/knees and also noted he could not bend over to pick up flowers.

This is a 30-year-old man, highly intelligent, with access to the finest medical specialists. In my mind he would have been wiser to skip Europeans and focus on doing what he needed to do, in order to try to compete in the team event in Sochi if not the individual event, rather than push for an eighth title. I did not intend to make Konstantin Menshov the focus of the sentence, as so many Plushenko fans apparently think. Obviously Plushenko is not the official (or committee) in charge of the Russian selection process; I mentioned Menshov to point out another capable elite man was available. But yes, I do think it would have added to Plushenko’s abundant legend if he had said, “I am just too injured right now, let someone else go and I will be back.”

Reply · Report Post