http://www.nbcolympics.com/news-features/n...turns+boss+backPosted: Feb 17, By Alan AbrahamsonPlushenko returns: the boss is back
Defending champion Plushenko brilliant, but Lysacek keeps paceVANCOUVER -- When Sochi was bidding for the 2014 Winter Games, the Russian authorities pulled out all the big guns. There, for instance, on the stage during Sochi's final presentation to the International Olympic Committee in 2007, was Vladimir Putin, then the Russian president, now its prime minister.
And there, too, was Yevgeny Plushenko, the 2006 Olympic men's figure skating champion. "Hello, Yevgeny!" purred Russian speedskating champion Svetlana Zhurova.
Hello, Yevgeny, indeed.
Meet the new boss in men's figure skating, ladies and gentlemen. It would appear he may well be the same as the old boss.
In a performance Tuesday night here at the Pacific Coliseum that within its first minute put him in position to earn a gold medal at the 2010 Vancouver Games, Plushenko -- who took three years off after Torino -- delivered an emphatic statement:
Beat me -- if you can.
To be sure, Plushenko is not a dead-bang lock for gold.
....
For his part, Plushenko created a stir from the moment he appeared on the ice, still rocking that blond mullet, and might he be the only superstar athlete in the world who can pull it off with genuine style?
Particularly when the mullet tops form-fitting black pants, a black shirt with silver spangles and black gloves?
Plushenko opened his short program with a quad toe-triple toe combo. It takes not only extraordinary physical skill but resolute mental toughness to open up with that combination.
Plushenko landed both.
Then came a triple axel.
Then a triple lutz.
All clean.
Within that first minute Plushenko had completed all his jumps. The rest was the footwork stuff the scoring system -- that is, the one implemented after the judging scandal at the Salt Lake Games -- demands.
When he was done skating, someone threw an oversized plush heart onto the ice. Plushenko, sauntering around the rink as if he owned the place, made a motion as if he was thrusting a sword back into its holster.
Hello, Yevgeny, and you are a very, very bad man -- meaning that of, course, in a very good way. Who else would be so nonchalant about executing that quad -triple combo?
"Well, of course," he said, "it's the main thing for the men today to do quadruples ... and I did," adding in a matter-of-fact tone as if this were the case for everyone, "I landed it clean."
....
Plushenko's score, 90.85, didn't quite match the best-ever short program number, 91.3, set by -- who else? -- Plushenko at the European champinships in January.
Some observers thought Plushenko's footwork was rather on the pedestrian side. He professed satisfaction. "I am happy with the scores," he said.
It's not that Plushenko can't lose. He could. But in Thursday night's free skate, it may well be the case that Plushenko loses if, and only if, he makes mistakes. That's an enviable position.
Further, a performance like the one Plushenko delivered Tuesday begs the obvious -- what could he possibly have in store Thursday, and how does he plan to trump what he did Tuesday?
Throw a second quad? "We'll see ... watch [Thursday]," he said.
Set a personal best? "We'll see. I am not thinking about medals. I am not thinking about points. I need to skate like I can skate."
Make history? "I think I am in history already," he said.
"He's a true champion," Weir said. "He's a great skater. He will be remembered for years and years and years," adding a moment later, "He just makes us all step our game up a bit."
One more thing, Yevgeny. Do you think the other skaters are afraid of you? Hello? "Ask them," he said.
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http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/winter_o...Fsports+(Sports)
BY Filip Bondy DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER Wednesday, February 17th 2010, 4:00 AMEvgeny Plushenko nails short program, emerges as favorite in men's figure skating at Olympics
Russia's Evgeny Plushenko raises bar in opening battle for men's short program supremacy Tuesday night. Dilkoff/GettyVANCOUVER - If there were any question about who rules over men's figure skating at the Olympic Games, that debate was answered Tuesday night within 15 seconds of Evgeny Plushenko's short program.
The Russian effortlessly nailed a perfect quad toe loop-triple toe loop combination at the start of his short program, laying down the athletic standard for those who would come much later. That quad would be the difference between first and second place again, as Plushenko led Evan Lysacek - Mr. Triple Jump - by .55 points going into Thursday's free skate.
Plushenko's quad was soaring, his spins more than good enough, his footwork acceptable. After a triple axel, he even threw in a fancy kick for transitional purposes, hoping to quiet his critics a bit. All done, he kissed an imaginary sword and returned it to the scabbard.
"I'm going to take any result I get," insisted Plushenko, who earned a 90.85 for his short program. "I have a history. I already have gold and silver. I won Europeans. I skated not a bad season."
Plushenko, 27, may deny it, but he is out to make significant history here. He won a silver medal in Salt Lake, a gold in Turin and is now trying to become the first back-to-back Olympic men's champion since Dick Button in 1952 and 1956. You wouldn't know it, but Plushenko insisted yesterday he was jittery and aching before his routine.
"It's hard to skate in the Olympic Games," he said. "You see this rink, of course you're nervous. It was hard for me to skate today. My muscles were sore. I needed massage."...
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/otherspor...te-showman.htmlBy Ian Chadband, Chief Sports Correspondent, in Vancouver
Published: 7:00PM GMT 17 Feb 2010Winter Olympics 2010: Showdown for Yvgeny Plushenko, skating's ultimate showmanHis performance was as imperious on the ice as it was quite brilliantly Machiavellian away from the rink. Yevgeny Plushenko, one of the finest figure skaters in history, looked haughtily into the TV camera and, with studied skill, effectively declared that the world was watching a contest between a man and mere boys.
Leading man: Yvgeny Plushenko has laid down the gauntlet to his rivalsWelcome back to the "Perfect King" screamed the message on the Russian flag being waved in the Pacific Coliseum. An entire sport must have felt the same because the return of its master showman with the fantastic leaps and the fantastic ego is helping rekindle all the old-fashioned theatrics and political rows which once made skating such a compelling soap.
On Thursday night, after a bravura short programme earned him the narrowest of leads in what has become a three-man showdown, he will skate for history, seeking to become the first man since Dick Button in 1948 and 1952 to win back-to-back Olympic titles. The legendary American skater, still offering trenchant views on TV at 80, would not put it past a man he describes as possessing "enough chutzpah to fill the Grand Canyon".
It would be an astonishing achievement, considering that this Russian royal quit after winning Olympic gold in Turin, thinking that at 23 and with troublesome knees after three world titles, there were other mountains to climb.
But by last year, he was tired of paint-balling and bombing around at 150mph on his motorbike. So after deigning to let his subjects watch him getting married for a second time live on the internet – his 7ft giant boxing pal Nikolai Valuev was there as a guest, not a bouncer – he was persuaded by his new wife, Yana, to stop mooching around and to go and make history.
And back he has come at 27, astoundingly, winning his sixth European title with a world-record score, looking better than ever and adamant that he does not just want to restore Russia's skating greatness but making it sound as if he is fighting for the very soul of his sport. For skating's future, no less.
Perhaps that's why, after his rapturously received programme on Tuesday, he drew an imaginary sword from an imaginary sheath, kissed it and put it back.
His opponents had been warned; the king was ready for battle.
So, choose your weapons. Plushenko's is the quad jump, skating's most athletic, dazzling and, of course, risky leap. He makes it look simple and simply brilliant while his opponents increasingly shy away from using it all, either because it is too difficult or too hazardous.
Disgusted that the four-revolution spin has become such a lost art that, in his absence, the last two world championships have been won without the winner even needing to attempt one – "impossible," he booms - Plushenko is redrawing the skating landscape by effectively telling his opponents they cannot outscore him if they do not dare to dare with the quad.
On Tuesday, hilariously, he went a bit further. After being the only man in the programme to land a quad toe-loop – only three others even attempted one – he couldn't resist going on Canadian TV to note sniffily: "Of course, we need quadruples. That's the future of figure skating and, of course, without the quadruple, I'm sorry but it's not men." What a great taunt: if you don't do the quad, you're a big cissy, so come and have a go if you think you're hard enough. Ah, the macho world of skating...
Will his rivals be sucked into Plushenko's mind games, though? Not necessarily. American world champion Evan Lysacek and Japan's Daisuke Takahashi are just a fraction behind him without having attempted a quad. So Plushenko just plants more doubt in their minds by suggesting he could attempt two tonight.
He might need to. His weakness remains his lack of artistry and, just like the good old days of cold-war judging scandals under the old scoring system, his team think he is the victim of a North American plot to ensure an old leaping dinosaur is kept off the podium.
On the other hand, his critics reckon he has always benefited from over-inflated marks for presentation simply because of his reputation.
Former Olympic pairs champion Jamie Sale said recently: "I don't believe him when he skates. At the Olympics in Turin, he wasn't doing anything quality on the ice but by throwing his arms around, the judges were like 'Oh my God, he's amazing'." I'm not buying it. That's not skating."
It is easy to understand what she means. He skated to Rodrigo's beautiful Concierto de Aranjuez with all the understated subtlety he brings to his celebrated interpretation of Tom Jones's Sex Bomb in which he dons a muscle-man suit and strips to gold bikini bottoms.
If you want lyricism, forget it. It's the athleticism, showmanship and the dead-eyed certainty of his landings which still make Plushenko unmissable entertainment.
He is not unbeatable but is anyone man enough to do the job?
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http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/2010win...3517/story.htmlBy Cam Cole, Canwest News Service, February 16, 2010Olympic men's figure skating: Patrick Chan fails to press his point
Technical wizardry of Russia's Evgeni Plushenko rules the dayVVANCOUVER - The debate will have to wait for another day. Maybe another year, or four.
On this day at the Pacific Coliseum, Patrick Chan failed to press his point.
The 19-year-old Canadian hope in the men's singles – who knew he had to count on his total skating to overcome the technical wizardry of Russia's Evgeni Plushenko – stepped out of his triple Axel, nearly fell on a footwork sequence and finished behind his music and over the two minutes, 50 seconds time limit. And that was way too many errors to figure in the race for gold.
....
When Plushenko skated, he looked bulletproof, nothing less. Within the first 40 seconds, he had racked up 32 points with a Quad-triple toe loop combination, a triple Axel and triple Lutz – a clean sweep of the toughest jumps in skating – and that's if he didn't do anything between the big tricks, and we're pretty sure the defending Olympic champion did.
His score of 90.85 was little more than a hair below the 91.30 he received at the European championships, which observers on this side of the pond assumed was just a case of home cooking. Evidently not.
But then came the flip side of the coin – Japan's Daisuke Takahashi, with hair by Edward Scissorhands, who launched his counter-offensive with a terrifically rounded but Quad-less program of jumps and art and musicality, and when his score came up, 90.25, the Plushenko camp must have known it was in for a fight.
....
Plushenko was pleased, and rightfully so. He even jousted pleasantly with the English-speaking media, but his only comment on the allegations that he is too focused on the big jumps and not on the overall skating skills was: “I don't care today about transitions or the scoring system. I did my clean program, and it's the Olympic Games.”
His camp did the lobbying for him.
“It's a shame to skate without the Quad at the Olympics, when skaters 10 years ago were doing them,” said his coach Alexei Mishin, reiterating his pre-emptive strike in the ideological battle between the artists and the technicians. “People say we don't need Quads, we just need clean-skated programs with triples. I say this is wrong. It will take the sport back to how it was before [Elvis] Stojko and [Alexei] Urmanov.”
“Evgeni believes in his heart that if the sport is going to push forward, it has to be with Quad jumps,” said Plushenko's agent, Ari Zakarian. “If there are no Quads, the sport is going backwards.”
....
“I was under great pressure because of the poor results of the Russian Federation, but it is the Olympics, and there is always pressure,” said Plushenko, and he might have been speaking for the young Canadian. “Anybody who says there isn't, I don't believe him.”
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http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/2010win...uver+Sun+-+News)
By Dan Barnes, Canwest Olympic Team; February 17, 2010Russia's Evgeni Plushenko: Is it too early to crown him king?
With a stunning performance and the quad, Russia's Evgeni Plushenko will be hard to catch 
Russia's Evgeny Plushenko performs in his figure skating men's short program at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver during the 2010 Winter Olympics on February 16, 2010.
Russia's Evgeny Plushenko performs in his figure skating men's short program at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver during the 2010 Winter Olympics on February 16, 2010.
Photograph by: Yuri Kadobnov, AFP/Getty Images
The Emperor is back, fully clothed save for the third Olympic medal that will soon be draped around his neck.
The only mystery is its colour, and a betting man would surely go with gold.
Russian superstar Evgeni Plushenko is better than ever, reeling off a stunning quad in combination to open an awe-inspiring short program Tuesday at Pacific Coliseum. He was worth all the hype and perhaps even the grossly inflated marks at the Rostelecom Cup and Russian nationals that fuelled his celebrated return from a three-year retirement to this Grand Prix season.
His Olympic-record score of 90.85, though not a season high, was just enough to lead the field of 24 men who qualified to skate Thursday's long program.
"The most important thing is to skate decently," Plushenko said. "I'm very pleased with my jumps today. I was able to keep my nerves under control."
And surely contributed to the nervousness of others, given that he skated so early and set the bar so high. Only American Evan Lysacek and Daisuke Takahashi of Japan skated clean and strong enough, though without quad, to nearly match it. And that's really all they could hope for, to be close.
...
Because Plushenko's slim lead is likely only to grow Thursday, with eight jumps on order and the Russian master planning two quads. He will not make it easy for anyone who isn't prepared to match him jump for jump over more than four minutes of battle. That's his game. His agenda.
"Without quadruples, I don't know, sorry, but it's not men. It's not men's figure skating," he said.
Plushenko's program-opening mastery of the quad toe, triple toe combination scored a whopping 14.8 points. His triple Axel was worth a perfect 10. He skated 10th only because retirement sapped his world ranking points, and his total made a mockery of the first half of the event, leaving him 15 points clear of the field until his closer rivals showed up.
"It's third Olympic Games for me and I skated not bad. I agree with points today," he said. "It's never to be easy. If somebody going to say, today I'm not nervous or I skate easy, I'm not tired -- that's not right. I'm not going to believe him. All the time it's hard and of course for me it's hard because I did not skate [during retirement]."
He still skates like nobody else in the world, with the jumping power ingrained in him over more than a decade by coach Alexei Mishin. Retirement diminished none of his jump height and majesty. Sure, he skips the fancy footwork in between, and that gives hope to the men without quads. If they're clean, they're close, but that's as much a risk as tackling the quad and failing.
....
"He just makes us all step our game up a bit," Weir said. "I don't think there is anything unjust with his scores."
They are proof that he has lost none of his regal bearing in retirement and in fact gained some perspective.
"I will take any result," Plushenko said, somehow summoning modesty. "You know I have silver medal, I have gold medal and if I am third here or second or fifth, I will take the result. I just enjoy it. Of course I am nervous today. It's Olympic Games and every time at Olympic Games it's hard to skate, it's hard to compete."
But it's also thrilling for a man who knows he can win every single competition. Domination on a grand scale can lead to complacency, and perhaps that's why he retired. Well, that or the Russian rock star life he wanted to exploit for all it was worth. The guy certainly didn't come back for the money.
"It's not about being rich," said his agent Ari Zakarian. "He's a wealthy guy. Whatever he wants he has it. He has fame, family, close friends. He has a lot of respect in the nation of Russia. For him it means just proving to himself and doing what he likes to do."
He also may feel a need to do it now. There is pressure on him to heat up this tepid start to Russia's Olympics, a meek opening that included Monday's shocking, history-making podium shutout in pairs skating.
"Russia is not doing that well at the Olympics,'' Zakarian said. "He knows the whole nation is watching. He skates for his wife, for his country, his coach, his choreographer."
And for himself.
"This is his place, he's like a fish in water," Zakarian said. "Throw a fish into water, the fish feels himself. Comfortable."
Comfortable, in his new clothes, just like his old clothes.