I originally thought you were a troll, pangtonfan, but your posts since have proven me wrong. You are just very opinionated like several of us on here, lol, and I enjoy your threads, especially the last one, which had me writing a thesis!
Now as to this other excellent thread question you pose, I say most definitely "YES". Evan is the hardest working male skater out there and I don't see why he cannot come back in 4 yrs. and try to reclaim his Olympic Title, just as others throughout history have tried to do so as well (e.g. Brian Boitano & Evgeni Plushenko). But my only concern for him, as I mentioned in that other thread last month, is will he be able to keep up his work ethic? Because it seems to me he won because of his incredible work ethic to the point of OCD (similar to Tara Lipinski), so imho his only obstacle would be if he were *not* able to work as hard this time due to injury & age, as the constant repetitiveness of jumps must take their toll on the body, especially as one gets older. And in fact the only reason why I think Zhenya was able to come back after a 4-year layoff and do as well as he did (only missing the gold by 1 point) was because he is a natural athlete, and as a result could afford not to overwork his body. Which is why he landed a quad & 3Axel on his first time out in competition at COR in 2009.
I honestly would loooooooooooooooooove
to see a rematch of Evgeni & Evan at the next Olympics. It would be like two prize fighters going at it once again to see whom will win the Heavyweight Champion of the World Title this time around.
arty: It would be one for the ages, just like this past Olympics was imho, but this time the setting would be in Russia, not North America/Canada.
As of now Evan has no competition in America imho nor the world truth be told, none can match his consistency, or his ability to study the COP to such a fault that he knows how to make it work to his advantage (i.e. putting most of his jumps in the second half of the program in order to earn bonus points, tacking on doubles here & there to earn even more points, etc.). And constructing a program that plays to his strengths & gets the crowd involved. That's his winning formula imho, and that's what his nemesis Evgeni Plushenko must watch out for this time around ~ to learn from Evan ~ to create a program that plays to his strengths like Nijinsky did, and most importantly to study the COP to a fault the same way Evan has. Tomas Verner has also learned from Evan's winning formula this season, and is winning competitions by doing the exact same jumps, et al, that Evan has. If he had done this last year he might've been the Olympic Champion. His attempt at quads only caused inconsistency, better to skate a clean program imho, and this goes for ALL the skaters!
p.s. that said, I worry too about Zhenya's body holding up this time around as well. He's 3 yrs. older than Evan, and he plans to skate all three years this time leading up to Sochi in 2014. I hope he & Mishin take it very very carefully, only doing COR/Rostelecom Cup, Nationals, Euros, and Worlds (4 competitions per year). If he can just maintain the jumps he has now that should be enough to medal, but
most importantly he N-E-E-D-S a program like Nijinsky!!!! The very best competitions are when everybody skates their best and you win (just ask Evan).
