Plushenko will honour us with his presence in 2010! | Page 33 | Golden Skate

Plushenko will honour us with his presence in 2010!

janetfan said:
And Joubert and Chan skated their best in LA? What about Abbott? His meltdown was so severe it may have contributed to global warming :laugh:
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It's exactly my point. Maybe Plushenko and Evan won because other competitors did not rise to the occasion of major competitions. Too bad. Twenty years from now when a new GS member looks at the records to see who won the 2006 Olys and 2009 Worlds, guess what names he will see and learn nothing about the other guys

C'est la vie, janetfan. Favorites do not all skate their best.
 
...and twenty years from now this thread will probably still exist cause we will still debate the fact that Plushenko did not win Olympics just because the others faltered. :p
 
seniorita said:
...and twenty years from now this thread will probably still exist cause we will still debate the fact that Plushenko did not win Olympics just because the others faltered. :p
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IMO, he is the best technical skater with the COP it is the way it worked -the same theory also would apply to the ladies.

I.O.W. he did win fair and square. They all skated under the same set of judging and rules. Plushy came out on top and did the best with the parameters that were in place. I still agree with that decision- the ladies 3 / 4 place is my only qualm now with the Olys.
 
seniorita said:
...and twenty years from now this thread will probably still exist cause we will still debate the fact that Plushenko did not win Olympics just because the others faltered. :p
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Yes, and it shows the extent to which his win was ambiguous because the absolute victory leaves no room for debate at all!:rock:
 
Yes, and it shows the extent to which his win was ambiguous because the absolute victory leaves no room for debate at all

Is that so? What about envy, for example?:p Evgeni had many overwhelming victories, but that didn`t stop some people from debating his skating skills, incl. absurd remarks like "he can`t skate".
 
seniorita said:
...and twenty years from now this thread will probably still exist cause we will still debate the fact that Plushenko did not win Olympics just because the others faltered. :p
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more like he won because nothing....barring a MAJOR meltdown would stop the judegs from giving the gold to him. He did deserve it (i guess) but he skated like he just had to show and get the medal, which in truth was pretty much what was going to happen.
 
Evgeni had an interview (i cant find the link now, tommorow i will ) and among things he said he manages now to jump 4-3 in practice but had a small problem with his landing foot, they found a cyst in the achilles area, and doctors faced it with injections, he still follows mishin's camp so maybe this was not a grand problem ,
i just wanna ask, is a cyst in right foot something serious and /or permanent?i have no idea..
 
Thanks for the link; very interesting summary, although the news about the cyst are worrying. Maybe it`s not "mortal", but to me it`s a kind of bad omen. Evgeni has hardly started to train seriously again, and his body is already giving in to the pressure. Not a good sign, if you ask me. Hope his body will be able to adjust and bear the strain. His mind and fighting spirit seem to be all right, though (well, had no doubts about that), but I am literally waiting for the blokes who will blame him for looking for excuses not to return to amateur skating...
 
I for one do not understand the critics who feel that Plushenko "disappointed" them at the 2006 Olympics.

This is a sport. He is an athlete going for the championship in his sport. He came out there a man among boys, took care of business, and went home with the Olympic gold metal.

It doesn't seem right to complain, well, yes, but he didn't entertain me as much as I wanted him to.
 
the judges disappointed me in 06 more than Plushy... he laid it down, but his artistry marks were way too high.

Buttle was the disappointing athlete - planning a fall? BLAH! the big problem with CoP are little loopholes like that, that can be exploited
 
Mathman said:
I for one do not understand the critics who feel that Plushenko "disappointed" them at the 2006 Olympics.

This is a sport. He is an athlete going for the championship in his sport. He came out there a man among boys, took care of business, and went home with the Olympic gold metal.

It doesn't seem right to complain, well, yes, but he didn't entertain me as much as I wanted him to.
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I think the fans, like me, were disappointed in the performance portion of his 2006Oly skate. I believe him to be a much better competitor than what he displayed. I also believe that some of the scores were way out of line, yet I believe he deserved the win in that field of skaters who also did not skate as their peronal bests would warrant.

Nevertheless, his name will be entered as the gold medal winner in the Annals of Olympic Champions. I'm sure he went home happily.
 
Mathman said:
This is a sport. He is an athlete going for the championship in his sport. He came out there a man among boys, took care of business, and went home with the Olympic gold metal.
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I wanted to say that for a long time, but as I m a plushy fan* with certificate :p * it might sound biased. And i think it gives another importance if you say the same ;) (who would listen to me?) .I have the same attitude against any sport I watch. I m sure i m the least experienced here concerning skating, so i just distinguish the gala from the competitions in my mind. And in competitions I dont always expect the best of a skater's artistry.
Plush said in his recent interview (i think the links above) that in his quad combination both in sp and lp, he was sort of trembling in his foot, and he felt a power (god or whatever) or will to win and struggled to save them last second. You can see his attitude at the end of Sp and Lp to understand the difference in his approach. In Sp he clenched his fists and cheered, in Lp he looked relieved, not even having a decent final position. What judges gave is another chapter and doesnt concern the skater.
Anyone who has trained in any sport can understand, and I wonder how so many people here that were /are skaters are so much disappointed by his Lp(i have a very different image of his Sp obviously), so much that it is almost 2010 and are still disappointed. What would they do in plush's place , one step before the Olympic gold that he missed in the last Olympics?
Well he didnt entertain me either in Lp night, but I didn't ask for it. Lambiel didnt either but I adored his vivaldi. The only one who entertained me was Lysacek and he is far from my fav skater. But plushy went home happy, and his fans went home happy too. It was a great night and mostly i remember the medals from back then. And he entertained me in here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qekIbnMOFo (whole Gala but this my fav part of Olympics:)).This is the point I forgot he had a mediocre presentation and no transitions in Godfather. Cause here he was the godfather himself, the man has star quality. I didnt say it, Mr Button had:p

sorry for rambling :o
 
I agree with Mathman and seniorita. Plushenko's 2006 Olympic performance didn't entertain me either. But I have nothing to complain. I actually felt relieved right after his LP. The most important thing was he got the Olympic gold! The one that should belong to him. The one that he wanted so much. The one that if he didn't get at that time, he may never get. Don't you think the fact that Michelle Kwan never got Olympic gold medal to match her greatness was a regret, disappointing, sad thing, even though she was and always will be one of the greatest figure skaters in the history?! I don't want it to happen to any skaters with great abilities, and with only Olympic gold medal missing in his or her resume. Same regret goes to Slutskaya, Kurt Browning, and many others. Of course, their reasons of missing Olympic gold medal (in Browning's case, Olympic medal of any color) were different.

Which is more important in a sport, any sport - to entertain the audiences or to win? You want entertainment? He gave you at the Olympic Gala after he took care of the business. He understood the CoP rules, he followed the CoP rules, and he maximized his points and won. What's to complain?

Same goes to Jeffrey Buttle. He understood his own abilities and he understood the CoP. He took the advantage of CoP and maximized the points. He succeeded and got the bronze. I think he was smart. It's like a short track runner who was in a tight race. In order to be in front, he leans over at the finish line to be probably 0.01 second faster than others. That is race, or we call it competition.
 
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jennylovskt said:
Which is more important in a sport, any sport - to entertain the audiences or to win? You want entertainment? He gave you at the Olympic Gala after he took care of the business. He understood the CoP rules, he followed the CoP rules, and he maximized his points and won. What's to complain?
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I can't speak for others, but for me, I think the comparison between the previous Olympic champion and Plushenko did Plushy no good. Four years earlier, we got two really great performances from Yagudin. In 2006, we got two checklist perofrmances - overmarked ones at that - from a skater who we all knew was capable of more. The point isn't that Plushenko was better than the others - of course he was, they all skated badly in the SP, the LP, or both, while he made no mistakes; the point is that he was not the best he could be.
 
jennylovskt said:
Which is more important in a sport, any sport - to entertain the audiences or to win? You want entertainment? He gave you at the Olympic Gala after he took care of the business. He understood the CoP rules, he followed the CoP rules, and he maximized his points and won. What's to complain?
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Personally speaking as one of those people who were *disappointed,* I understand that winning is THE raison d'etre of most athletes. I get that it's probably safer to take care of 'the business' and win gold if you skate some sort of blah program that minimizes your chances of making mistakes.

But this is figure skating we're talking about--a sport, yes, but a sport that includes in its criteria artistry, presentation, (whatever those may be) music, etc. Surely it is not too far-fetched to expect at least a modicum of entertainment from a sport that supposedly values artistry and creativity? I don't think that there is necessarily such a clear-cut dichotomy between winning and entertaining the audience.

As for Plushenko, I don't fault him for taking what some may perceive as the safer route--after all, he's been waiting for that particular prize for four long years. But I, for one, cannot help but feel disappointed (even though he did deserve to win) because I prefer seeing inspired performances, people performing to the best of their ability.
 
Each athlete is free to choose his own manner of winning. One acts like Caesar whose motto was "came,saw,conquered" (Boitano, Kulik, Yagudin), the athlete who`s chosen this road to the victory comes out on the ice and fights up to the end as if it were the very last battle in his life, giving all over himself to the spectators, showing all his skills to them.
But there is also an alternative way, an accountant`s one. The sportsman seizes an abacus and calculates scrupulously the profit-loss, the more that the new judging system promotes it, develops the plan of work, and then operates according to it on the ice.
In the end, the first skater is crowned by a laurel wreath of glory like Caesar, while the sportsman-accountant goes happily home, his pockets full of good wages for the well done work, certainly, "accounting" ruins the sport but this is Mr. Cinquanta`s business.
By the way, I personally wouldn`t mix Evan`s recent victory at the Worlds with Plushenko`s at the Olys. Yes, Evan didn`t jump quad in his programs because this jump was insufficiently stable, but he fought there like a real warrior and gave out everything he could!:)
 
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Olympics 2002 was different, Yagudin won like a warrior but Plushenko also fought like one. Evan also in 2006. But to compare 2002 Olympics, with 2006 Olympics and 2009 worlds, there is no common point between them. I m sure all skaters have fought their places one time or another.
In just my opinion, we should not mix neither compare competitions,each competition is a dynamic and not a static event, so how an athlete reacts has to do with how the other athletes perform, the arena, the people, the time and his condition.
And Olympics is just one competition out of the hundrend they participate. MAybe it is not important to give out everything you could, when half of what you can is enough to win. I dont know, I m not a skater, it is their body and soul on ice.
Just to add that all skaters under COP calculate their points, accountant is not a nice word for an athlete.
 
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