Plushenko will honour us with his presence in 2010!

At the 2002 Olys Plushenko was rather good, not quite as good as Yagudin Timothi and Takeshi were, but still good enough! Then, at 2006 Olys he was already halfdead! And, finally, I think all of us are going to have a very rare chance to watch a DEAD body wearing skates and jumping quad (though UR and a very scrappy one, but still)!!! Hurray!

Halfdead..It is amazing ..that people spend valuable time in posts of skaters they obviously not just dont like but detest or ..Usually i just glance Joubert threads and I just dont like him much, lol!
I assume you mean Timothy and Honda were better in Sp (if that) cause if you mean they were better skaters of the event or better in Lp, I will assume your Tv was broken or you were watching Athen's 2004 Olympics or something

seniorita said:

Halfdead..It is amazing ..that people spend valuable time in posts of skaters they obviously not just dont like but detest or ..Usually i just glance Joubert threads and I just dont like him much, lol!
I assume you mean Timothy and Honda were better in Sp (if that) cause if you mean they were better skaters of the event or better in Lp, I will assume your Tv was broken or you were watching Athen's 2004 Olympics or something

Click to expand...

Thanks for your advice, seniorita!Rushed away in Joubert`s thread!!!

elanna said:

At the 2002 Olys Plushenko was rather good, not quite as good as YagudinTimothi and Takeshi were, but still good enough!

Click to expand...

He was good but not as good as Yagudin. Yes!

Timothy is an example of what a jumping bean looks like. There was nothing that could be used to compare him with Plushenko. Takeshi is a lot better than Tim in general, but he did badly that night.

Look how long and how fast that Plushenko's threads go! :thumbsup:So many people care to post and read including so many self-labeled Plushenko haters. Go! Plushenko!

Personally I would prefer he not come back. I'm worried that if he doesn't skate well he will still get extreme marks based on his name and not his skating.

screech said:

Personally I would prefer he not come back. I'm worried that if he doesn't skate well he will still get extreme marks based on his name and not his skating.

Click to expand...

Well, it's still happening now even without him around. Besides, would the judges really give extreme marks just because he's a former Olympic champion? Look at what happened to most of the reinstated skaters in 1994. Most seemed to get no help from the judges at all.

Bleh. Call me a hypocrite because I want Sasha to come back, but I'm just not thrilled about a potential Plushy return. I never liked his music choices, and IMO he never had that one super-fantastic long or short program, St. Peterburg 300 (02-03 long) was pretty cool, but it didn't have that "wow" feel to it like Yagudin's Gladiator or Overcome, Klimkin's Prelude to an Afternoon of a Faun, Kulik's Revolutions or Abt's sexy techno-folk song short from the 01-02 season.

If he does come back, I hope he gets an excellent choreographer and some interesting, passionate music to skate to. :thumbsup:

screech said:

Personally I would prefer he not come back. I'm worried that if he doesn't skate well he will still get extreme marks based on his name and not his skating.

Click to expand...

I think it is also a gamble. If he skates as poorly as he did in 2006 Olys and is scored accordingly, he will go away as did all those other blokes at that 1998(?) Olys. On the other hand, if he truly skates better than he did in 2006, he will have gotten the respect of an Olympic champion, which imo, he does not have now.

Plushenko has said himself that his Olympic programs were structured
to earn points and of course to win nothing more nothing less. Many skating fans think that his scores in 2006 were outrageous but the judges gave him those scores. Plushenko was surely not forcing the judges to give him those scores. Not liking his skating and the way he was scored are two different things IMO and in my eyes does not lessen his Olympic win. Here we are four years later and after each competition the skating fans (myself included) are still arguing about certain skaters being over-scored and under-scored. Nothing much has changed. Having Melissa and Denis choreograph his programs are a step in the right direction for Plushenko and if wants to come back as a competitor for Olympic Gold I welcome it, and wish him luck .

To be an Olympic champion, you don't have to skate well. You just have to skate better than the other guys.

Mathman said:

To be an Olympic champion, you don't have to skate well. You just have to skate better than the other guys.

Click to expand...

and we have a winner!

arty:

His has the respect of his fans and he is known outside the strict circles of fs fans. He is mentionned everywhere legendary athletes are mentionned and has the respect of great figure skaters,one night that you dont skate your best doesnt cancel your impact on the sport since you were still far above the rest. Me, I prefer that someone at the end of a long career won his Olympic Medal, than the ones who skated for one- two seasons, had a great night, took the Gold medal and left the sport, who I still respect their win but not more than Plush because he was not as people expected him to be.

Mathman said:

To be an Olympic champion, you don't have to skate well. You just have to skate better than the other guys.

Click to expand...

So true! Most of the elite men were really not at their best at the Olympics. Many of the top skaters had errors in their SP and I recall one of the Eurosport commentators saying "It's almost like no one wants a medal anymore."

I don't know what we're discussing here. For me it was always obvious that Yagudin and Plushenko were far beyond all the others. And these two made some kind of revolution in men skating cos level of world men competitions was quite weak that time just remember their rivals - Stojko, Weiss, Eldredge and later Goebel and Joubert. Yagudin and Plush demonstrated another level of artistry, passion and choreo. And they built a bridge to nowdays men FS, to Lysacek, Johnny, Lambiel, Chan, Oda etc. That's it.

Fashionista said:

I don't know what we're discussing here. For me it was always obvious that Yagudin and Plushenko were far beyond all the others. And these two made some kind of revolution in men skating cos level of world men competitions was quite weak that time just remember their rivals - Stojko, Weiss, Eldredge and later Goebel and Joubert. Yagudin and Plush demonstrated another level of artistry, passion and choreo. And they built a bridge to nowdays men FS, to Lysacek, Johnny, Lambiel, Chan, Oda etc. That's it.

Click to expand...

You made some good points but I disagree with part of your argument. As I see it, Yagudin and Plushenko did push figure skating forward, and were very strong in their ability to blend top-notch technical content with great presentation. I disgaree with your assretion that Yagudin and Plushenko "demonstrated another level of artistry, passion and choreo", however. They didn't - there were always great artists and passionate skaters. There have also been other skaters who could blend artistry and technical content (Browning, for example). But having two rivals who were that good meant they constantly had to work to improve and grow as skaters.

Personally, I thought Yagudin's presentation was better, and that Plushenko peaked well before his gold medal winning performance. But I recognize both as superb performers, and Plushenko is probably the most consistent skater I've seen - ever.

I also find it strange to see Joubert in the "weak competitors" group and Lambiel in the "new group", considering Lambiel was skating seniors before Joubert did, and that Joubert only competed against Yagudin for one season. Stojko, Weiss and Eldredge are more relevant comparisons as they actually competed against both Yags and Plush for several years. I would argue that Lambiel and Joubert were the strongest guys in the field leading up to Torino (other than Plush, of course), where neither really delivered. Brian's breakthrough as an elite skater came earlier than Stephane's, but that's about it.

"And they built a bridge to nowdays men FS, to Lysacek, Johnny, Lambiel, Chan, Oda etc." is also strange to me. Evan Lysacek is a very good skater but great artistry and choreo is not what I would associate with him. Chan's not there yet, technically. And Lambiel was a contemporary of Plushenko and Yagudin, as I already noted. Lysacek and Johnny are not great CoP skaters, and neither of them are complete skaters the way Plush and Yags were. I would say that the closest of the recently retired/current guys to that standard are Brian, Dai and Stephane. Once Chan gets the 3A really consistent and gets in a quad, he's there too - artistically he already is, of course. Oda is too much of a wildcard.

I saw Yagudin as having a one-time peak performance in 2002 Olys, Never before. But he deserved that win. No other.

I saw Plushenko as a dull unpolished skate performer in 2006 Olys who actually looked bored himself while skating. Maybe Gregory/Petruchov will give him the ability to become an overall good skater other than just a jumper. JMO.

Joesitz said:

I saw Yagudin as having a one-time peak performance in 2002 Olys, Never before.

Click to expand...

You're a hard man to please, Joe.

In the years 1998-2002 Yagudin won four world championships, three Europeans, three Grand Prix Finals and twelve individual Grand Prix events. His perfomance at the Olympics was outstanding, but he had many other outstnding performances during that span.

Of his world championship performancves, only in 2000 was he not up to par. Besides the Olympics, he gave several equally good performances of both Winter and The Man in the Iron Mask. He also gave memorable performances of Gladiator, Broken Arrow, Overcome and Lawrence of Arabia. (Not to mention Racing, but I can see where that program might not be everybody's cup of tea.)

And who can forget One Banana -- however hard we try.

I saw Plushenko as a dull unpolished skate performer in 2006 Olys who actually looked bored himself while skating.

Click to expand...

Again, I think we need to evaluate Plushenko's entire body of work, not just make a judgment about one performance,

I think we should remember that in the Olympic year he was worn out both mentally and physically, he was fighting multiple injuries, recovering from surgery, and basically just trying to hold himself together to somehow get through one last skate at Torino. In this respect he was in the same position as Michelle Kwan.

I do think that his attutude going into the 2006 Olympics was, please just let me hit my quads so I can get my medal and go home.

As it turned out no-one else really brought their A game and Plushenko, even at half strength, looked like a man among boys.

In 2002 I was so fascinated by the rival of yag vs plush that i wanted any of the two to win. Of course Yag was better. Having seen his performance now after some years, I think he didnt skate that passionate, at least thats how I feel when watching it in youtube, he seemed too concetrated in his work. Of course then it looked super-wow with the excitement and the commentators and stuff, and mostly for his emotional breakdown afterwards, but then his Worlds after Olympics were truly amazing, and mostly I remember that performance of Iron Mask. My fav Yagudin program is Broken Arrow. And Winter of course.
I m not saying it has anything to do with how plushenko skated in 2006 Lp, I cant compare anyway, different times, rivals and attitude against the Olympics. I also believe Plushy skated Carmen miles more enthusiastic and risked more with the fear to not medal at all in 2002 than his Godfather, but if i have to choose between enthusiastic Plushenko with no Gold and conservative one with Gold, i prefer the second cause he really had been through a lot to win it and he deserved it.
Banana and Baby sex Bomb are the programs that make me wish youtube didnt exist!

Where were Lambiel, Joubert, Buttle, Weir, Lysacek, and Takahashi - all those big names in 2006 Olympics - during those years of Yagudin-Plushenko rivalry? Plushenko was there on the top and stayed there on the top for all those years while Lambiel, Buttle gradually worked their way up, Joubert, Weir, Lysacek, and Takahashi emerged in different time. Yes, Plushenko's performances in 2006 Olympics were disappointing but that doesn't change his superior position in the history in his time. No matter how you slice it, the judges' decision has reflected that nature.

Mathman said:

You're a hard man to please, Joe.

In the years 1998-2002 Yagudin won four world championships, three Europeans, three Grand Prix Finals and twelve individual Grand Prix events. His perfomance at the Olympics was outstanding, but he had many other outstnding performances during that span.

:Again, I think we need to evaluate Plushenko's entire body of work, not just make a judgment about one performance,

Click to expand...

I just never sat up for Yagudin when Kulic was around not to mention Stoiko, and you know that I do speak well of skaters with or without medals. I do not need a judge for that. Abt and Klimkin were better skaters in that earlier era, for me. But I cannot deny Yag's great 2006 Oly skate. Super!

I always acknowledge Plushenko's agility when it comes to Jumps even when the overall skate performance doesn't get to me. I feel that way even when thinking about his entire body of work including the many clownish Exhibitions. Even if he returns to competitive skating, I will be more interested in seeing how the judges score him than actually watching him skate. One has to wonder how he gets such high Levels and GoEs beyond jumping. increible. and, of course, those legions of fans who eat that up.

I eat ice cream
It 's fun watching ancient skating videos with english commentary that i have missed in local tv, I was watching Yag's cup of russia 1997 and there was a review of russian women between Slutskaya and Sokolova and about Bobek and Bonaly and who would be Olympic champ, then the presenter said :the new rising talent Yag will probably be the 1998 OC since Urmanov is injured, but if you wanna see the superstar of the future watch for the 15 y e.plushenko!
plushkiss!