http://www.examiner.com/figure-skating- ... z1flzCzCyXDecember 6, 2011Russian Nationals on the horizon for Olympic champion PlushenkoMany have known about the plans of 2006 Olympic champion Evgeny Plushenko to compete at home in 2014 at the Sochi Olympics, but few would have predicted his comeback to competition to begin this soon. In
an interview with Universal Sports, Plushenko says that he is preparing for his national championships, which will take place at the end of this month.
Plushenko was the most dominant figure in men's skating in recent memory. Between the fall of 1999 and 2006, he won 29 out of 34 international competitions, with one of his losses being at the 2002 Olympics, where he took the silver to Alexei Yagudin. After taking three seasons off following his Olympic triumph in 2006, Plushenko returned to competition in the fall of 2009 in anticipation of competing in his third Olympics in Vancouver.
Prior to Russian Nationals that season, he reaggravated a knee injury. But he came back strong to win both Russian Nationals and Europeans. In Vancouver, he took the silver behind American Evan Lysacek in a decision that divided the skating community and pushed the question of the value of quadruple jumps into the spotlight. The International Skating Union has since adjusted the judging system in an attempt to address this issue.
If Plushenko does succeed in coming back to competition and competing in Sochi, he will be 31 when he competes in his fourth Olympic Games. Lysacek has also expressed interest in returning to competition, but his comeback has been halted by a contract disagreement with U.S. Figure Skating (or, according to his agents, "prior contractual obligations").
If he comes back to international competition even sooner, say, at Europeans in January, he will be facing a very different landscape in figure skating, due in part to the controversial gold medal decision in Vancouver. This season has seen the renaissance of the quad, with an increase in the frequency of quad toes and quad salchows, and a desire to explore new quad territories - American Brandon Mroz landed the first quad lutz in international competition at NHK Trophy.
In some ways, the prominence of the quad jump amongst all of the top skaters in the world takes a great deal of the advantage that Plushenko enjoyed in the past away. It remains to be seen how he fits into the puzzle of men's figure skating should he decide to make his comeback this season.