Джонни Вейр: "Россия - очень жесткая страна"
(интервью Джонни :son-ce: Вайцеховской, оба периодически упоминают Плющенко ::yaz-yk: )
http://www.sport-express.ru/velena/reviews/50157/
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translation (by quiqi e)
Johnny Weir: "Russia is a very tough country"
In 2001, I won the Junior World Championship, and that was when I saw Zhenya Plushenko skating for the first time, at the World championships in Vancouver. In the short program, he skated to "Bolero", in a velvet red costume with gold embroidery, with long hair that also resembled gold ... It was so beautiful that I immediately realized that I wanted to skate like that. I tried to be more expressive on the ice, especially with hands, and very soon I heard from my coach that it would be good if my skating was more "American", and less "balletic".
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You know, when I was asked to comment on Plushenko's comeback to competitive skating, before the Olympic Games in Sochi, I said that I do not know any single athlete capable to fight so passionately. I have never been like that. I enjoyed skating, I liked to win, I liked when I skated a program without mistakes, but it was never, like Tarasova says, "an aortic rupture": to skate, to win, and to die. Well, it happened couple of times. But rather, it was an exception.
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- What did you feel about Evan's victory?
-I haven't actually seen his skating. Of my warm-up group, I only saw Plushenko, because I skated right after him. I was certain that if Zhenya does the quad and doesn't have any mistakes, he wins. I thought the judges simply could not not take into account his previous accomplishments.
I saw Lysacek's skating only after the Olympics, when it was uploaded on YouTube. I can say that it was the best Evan ever skated. But in Vancouver, I was so upset that I had lost, that Zhenya had lost ... Overall, it was a very sad night. I almost immediately went behind the scenes and cried there. It was too much, I could no longer keep it inside. There, behind the curtain, Zmievskaya had found me. She wrapped me in her mink coat, and, after the doping control, she had taken me to the Olympic village and brought French fries from "McDonalds" to our room. And we both mourned our Olympics with those fries.
- Did you believe that Plushenko would be able to skate in the individual event at the Olympic Games in Sochi?
-In the business that is called figure skating, the words often do not have any value. But Zhenya is a special case. If he promises something, you can be sure that he would do everything to keep his promise. So, actually, I had no doubt that he really was going to perform at the Olympic Games. In the team competition, he skated very well, I was simply proud of him. But before the short program you could already see that it hurt him to move.
It's really awful when the body does not let you do what you want. But it was even worse - at least for me — to watch it from outside. I really hope that at the next Olympics ... You know that he's going to go there? Maybe Zhenya just wants to atone for everything that happened in Sochi.