That grimace in the warmup was not faked. However, after the Team event, he should have atleast pulled out to give Kovtun or Voronov a shot. It's not like he and his federation were ignorant about his serious back injury.
I've been a long time fan of Plushy. Now looking back his final stint at Sochi, I feel let down. His demeanor, his egotism. The final gold medal eked out of the team event won't add to my book on his glory.
He chickened out yesterday. I would have kept infinitely greater respect for him if he had skated at least the SP and given a dignified exiting bow to his fans, even if he had fallen three times.
I think the Russian Federation had already closed out that possibility by all the shenanigans that went on leading up to the Games. First, Plushenko himself announced (at Russian nationals) that he would just skate the team event and let Kovtun skate the individual. Then the ISU said no, you can't do that. Then the Russian Federation made a special appeal to the ISU/IOC for a "clarification" of the substitution rule (in other words, can we do it anyway?), but no dice. So it would have looked fishy if Plushenko had come off the ice after winning the team LP, said, "Oh my poor back, here's the required doctor's report to let me withdraw, where's Kovtun?"
He could have at least skated to the middle of the ice-rink and bowed to the audience.
Between spitting on the ice after missing the axel and just sodding off without much acknowledgement of anyone around him, his attitude was just awful.
And this is why Plushenko should not have been selected in the first place. Everybody predicted something like this was going to happen and he'd have to withdraw because of very serious issues with his back. And it did happen.
After he set the motion for gold in team! So all those people and you can just drop it! You didn't get your precious Kovtun or whoever because you hate Plushenko so much!
Hmm, if that was the case Kovtun/ Voronov should have went instead of him. I understand he loves the sport and it's hard to let go. But It's not like they needed Plushenko badly for the team event. Russia was guaranteed gold unless a disaster happened. 2010 Olympics should have been his last go, ending on a high note. Instead, he had to scratch an event (that only happens every 4 years) that 1 of his healthy countrymen could have done and possibly placed either a good top 10 finish or higher.I think the Russian Federation had already closed out that possibility by all the shenanigans that went on leading up to the Games. First, Plushenko himself announced (at Russian nationals) that he would just skate the team event and let Kovtun skate the individual. Then the ISU said no, you can't do that. Then the Russian Federation made a special appeal to the ISU/IOC for a "clarification" of the substitution rule (in other words, can we do it anyway?), but no dice. So it would have looked fishy if Plushenko had come off the ice after winning the team LP, said, "Oh my poor back, here's the required doctor's report to let me withdraw, where's Kovtun?"
He could have at least skated to the middle of the ice-rink and bowed to the audience.
Between spitting on the ice after missing the axel and just sodding off without much acknowledgement of anyone around him, his attitude was just awful.
And this is why Plushenko should not have been selected in the first place. Everybody predicted something like this was going to happen and he'd have to withdraw because of very serious issues with his back. And it did happen.
OK, I get that Plush criticism from all fronts. But he did go out there and take a final bow to which he received a (mostly) standing ovation.
Actually, with his 91 points and 268 points (already both inflated), he would have earned bronze at best.
If Plushenko competed I bet the judges would have killed Chan and Hanyu even more. They would have found a way if Plushenko went clean
I doubt it. I severely doubt Plushenko even healthy could have landed 2 quads (as we saw, he didn't attempt 2 quads in the team FS) as well as two 3As... it had been over a decade (I think) since he ever successfully did 2 quads and 2 axels. Of course, people will spew the "If he were healthy" rhetoric ad nauseum, even with his FS from Russian Nationals. As the Olympics showed, he can give a good performance while injured, and a bad performance while supposedly healthy (as Russian Nationals showed).
I think it's absolutely disrespectful to call him an invalid and saying that he "brings shame". If anything, he's been a star in Russia and the world for figure skating, and even with screwing over Kovtun from an Olympic experience, that doesn't negate all that he's done.
FYI, Plushenko's clean SP was only 91 points, 6.5 back of Chan, and 10 points back of Hanyu. Hanyu and Chan each scored 178. So Plushenko would have had to do 2 quads and 2 axels to get 275 for silver (a FS of 184) and 281 for gold (a FS of 190 points). His personal best is 176. Maybe at his supreme best he could have beaten Chan, but not Hanyu, and he certainly hasn't ever skated a CoP level program with 2 clean quads and axels, and certainly wouldn't get Nationals-level inflation (i.e. 95 points even with all those doubles).
I know what the scores were. I wasn't the one calling him invalid or disgraceful either. Just saying that it was ironic he didn't compete because he couldn't win, but it turned out he might have had a shot after all.
" ''Perform through the pain for the honor of the country,'' Igor Lebedev, a parliament member from the nationalist Liberal Democrats, said on Twitter."
Lovely. Well, we can't all have the pain tolerance of politicians. I mean, it would have been a piece of cake for Lebedev, no doubt - but we can't all be like him, now, can we?