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I spoked with many ordinary russians after 13.02. (I was in Sochi until 24.02.) - most of them are not so "passionate" skating fans - his withdrawal, most of them, consider it like any other defeat in the sport - some time they were sad, but already tomorrow, forget about it ...
Of course, they have been a little more shocked, because they not even thinking about Plushy, as someone who can lose EVER - his aura of invincibility and impunity is now a little "chipped" among ordinary Russians, but all "fairy tales" must eventually come to the end - right? :mi_ga_et:
Russian have finally realized, that Plushy is also only "mortal man" ... nothing more that this.
People who loved him - love him still, maybe even more :plush45:
Yes, Evgeni is only a "mortal man"...And maybe many people forgot that, and saw him as "invicible" instead. Maybe some are disappointed to learn that he is only human, but to me, I wish people would stop and consider it a moment, and appreciate him, and appreciate what he has done, the more for the fact that he is "only human". Because in the end, people--fans or otherwise, Russian or otherwise--had no right to expect him to be anything else. If we wanted a "fairy tale", then we were wrong to be so greedy.
I remember the first interview Evgeni had in the spring of last year, after his disc replacement operation. He said that he estimated the chances of him making it to Sochi was 50%. But the truth is--as Yana finally told--actually at the time, based on what the doctors told him, they estimated his real chances of making it to Sochi to be one in a thousand.
I also remember an interview before the Russian Nationals, when Evgeni admitted that in the summer, when he first started to train again, he had a terrible fear before every jump, a fear that it might be his last, so much that with every jump, he felt like he was "jumping over a precipice". The fear was that the artificial disc and the screws in his back would not hold together. I was so moved when I read this interview, yet I so foolishly thought it was "only" a psychological barrier, one that he overcame. I thought this even until the team competition.
As Mishin kept on saying all year, what Evgeni was doing was "expanding the limits of human possibility". He was fighting against time, against pain, against the very laws of physics and biology, against fate itself--God Himself, if you will. And he won. What he achieved at Sochi, in the team competition: he took--by force--a great miracle from God's hands, if one dares to say such a thing. He took it by his own will and work and talent. Perhaps what he achieve was truly beyond the humanly possible, and he--not us--paid the price for it. Before the individual competition, when the metal screw broke inside of him, something that no one could have expected, and probably very few could have imagined--maybe that could only be fate reasserting its will.
After his withdrawal, I saw a Russian article in support of him, I think it was entitled "On Mercy". In the end of the article, the author comforts us, saying that after many decades, when Evgeni has grown old in a life of joy and fulfillment, people will remember his greatness, his achievements, what he has given to skating, and then "no one will remember what happened on February 13, 2014". I understand what the author meant, and what he wrote moved and comforted me, but in another sense, after having thought about it some more, I think I will also respectfully disagree with this last thought.
I do not think we should remember our heroes only by their moments of glory and victory, and try to forget their moments of adversity, as if these were moments that they should be ashamed of. Because these are the moments that show them to be human, and show ourselves to be human. And in these moments, we are not entitled to speak of "mercy" toward them, as if they require it.
So, I do not wish that people will forget what happened on February 13, 2014. Instead, I wish that people will come to remember it correctly. Namely, that steel broke, but not his spirit. That in the individual competition at the Sochi Olympics, Evgeni Plushenko, a human being, lost only to God. What he achieved at this Olympics is no less than what he did in his "days of glory". Maybe it was more, far more.
I am sorry, I know these are only my own thoughts; it doesn't answer the question of how people in Russia think about this...I think that maybe many people were overwhelmed by their own shock and disappointment, but in time, perhaps more people will come to see...I hope so.