Plushenko Announces Return to Competition Next Season | Golden Skate

Plushenko Announces Return to Competition Next Season

Anna

On the Ice
Joined
Jan 26, 2004
http://sportcom.ru/sport/figurkat/news454e16ce.htm

Translation

Evgeny Plushenko: I will prepare for Vancouver-2010.

The press-conference with Olympic Champions Tatiana Totmianina-Maxim Marinin, Evgeny Plushenko and famous musician and composer Edvin Marton took place in St. Peterburg.

The primary topic of the press-conference was the upcoming figure skating tour, featuring a number of well-known skaters. According to Evgeny Plushenko he spent nearly four years preparing the show. However, the final dates and locations for the tour aren't set. The only things known for sure are that the tour will begin in the end of Feburary 2007, will run till April, and will include more than 30 shows in Russia and CIS countries.

Evgeny Plushenko: "We are very dilligent in the preparation, trying to consider every minute detail. I can tell you that so far I am satisfied. Our show is a very large scale one, both in terms of skaters involved and in terms of settings. One of the unique features of the show will be numbers featuring several skaters at once. I think it's very interesting to have, say, four Olympic Champions doing the same element side-by-side. By the good tradition Evdin Marton will join the skaters for the show. And this time the skaters will use his music more".

Then asked where such an energy arise from Evengy Plushenko replied: "I am young, 24 year old. I have both the energy and the desire to try something new. I see no reason to relax in a rocking chair, cup of tea in hands, reviewing my medal collection. More so, I am 99% sure that I will return to eligible competition. I haven't even actually left it all, I merely took a season off. So I will prepare for Olympic Games in Vancouver. I would like to win the second Olympic gold in 2010.
 
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Joined
Jul 11, 2003
Welcome back, Plush!! and good luck to you. Back to back gold Oly medals are a rare species.

When was the last time a male skater got back to back Oly gold medals?

Joe
 

antmanb

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 5, 2004
Welcome back, Plush!! and good luck to you. Back to back gold Oly medals are a rare species.

When was the last time a male skater got back to back Oly gold medals?

Joe

Just in solo Males skating...you'd have to go back to Dick Button's back to back Golds in 1948 and 1952.

Then It was Karl Schafer In 1932 and 1936 (there were no Olympics in between his titles and Buttons' for obvious reasons)

Gillis Graftsrom had three back to back medals in 1920, 1924 and 1928.

Apparently back in the good old days multiple olympic golds was the norm!

Ant
 

icesk8erdude4e

Rinkside
Joined
Nov 7, 2006
Back to Back Olympic Golds

Yeah it was Dick Button's second Olympic Win in 1952 that was the last back to back gold. If you ask me I think that Plushenko may very well do that.
 

antmanb

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 5, 2004
I agree and i also hope if he does it is with some semblance of musicality and even just a pinch of choreography unlike his Torino programs which were artistically empty and extremely boring with all the front loading and posing.

Ant
 

temperboy28

Match Penalty
Joined
Feb 17, 2006
If Plushenko returns I would never watch mens skating again until after 2010 when he is gone for good. Seeing the judges give her outrageously inflated scores in every area and give him a 4-fall cushion even if somebody else skated perfectly with 3 quads is not even worth watching. I would only watch the other 3events, and not waste my time watching the mens Plushenko lovefest.

If I were ISU chief I would declare a full 20% deduction on the PCS scores the judges give, sorry the judges "gift" him every time he skates for starters.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
When you see Plushenko compete in person, he's a man among boys.

But 2010 is a long way off. He may not see any point in hanging around for another go at it.
 

slutskayafan21

Match Penalty
Joined
Mar 28, 2005
I also would not watch much mens skating if Plushenko returned. I would check the listings for the mens event and zap it out until after 2010 anyway. I much tape GP events he is not in just to see skaters I like skate, but that is it.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Actually, I like the suggestion of the "Plushenko deduction" to make it more fair. 20% is too high, though. With an overall 10% decduction for being Plushenko, he would have beaten Lambiel at the Olympics by only 1.29 points. That would have been exciting.
 

R.D.

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
It "sounds" fair but it really is not. That's just a whole new can of worms there.

What the judges need to do is just to even things out and judge WHAT THEY SEE. Apparently Cop hasn't solved this problem. Isn't this why it was created in the first place? We may as well go back to 6.0's.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Oops, my bad. I see that the suggestion was to take 20% off just the Program Components Scores for Plushenko's performances. In that case it's Plushenko 233.66, Lambiel 231.21. Again, a nail-biter.
 

slutskayafan21

Match Penalty
Joined
Mar 28, 2005
Actually, I like the suggestion of the "Plushenko deduction" to make it more fair. 20% is too high, though. With an overall 10% decduction for being Plushenko, he would have beaten Lambiel at the Olympics by only 1.29 points. That would have been exciting.

temper said a 20% deduction on PCS though, not a total 20% deduction. A 20% deduction on PCS would have been about 10% overall right? :laugh:
 

temperboy28

Match Penalty
Joined
Feb 17, 2006
Actually, I like the suggestion of the "Plushenko deduction" to make it more fair. 20% is too high, though. With an overall 10% decduction for being Plushenko, he would have beaten Lambiel at the Olympics by only 1.29 points. That would have been exciting.

I meant 20% on PCS scores only. That would be about 10% probably as PCS and TES score are usually pretty even for skaters.

I was being a bit silly of course but I dont disagree with any of his wins last year, he definitely deserved them all looking at his skates and his competitors, but I do disagree with such high scores in some areas he gets. The judges are wanting to put competitions out of reach of his competitors before events even start and that is not right, and it makes the mens event not worth watching if they are going to think of doing that again. His 90 in the short program in Turin was totally unwarranted, especialy as the first skater, I looked at his point protocals and his scores were put up too high in almost every single thing. They should have just told him to skip the competition, give him the gold medal, and let the rest compete for the other placings. After all the only way he was ever going to lose the gold to the judges was if he sat on his rear end for half of the long program, no matter what anybody else had done.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
That's quite true, and to be totally honest, I kind of hope that Evgeny does move on to other enterprises and does not try to come back for the next Olympics.

But I didn't want to come out and say that because I always defended Michelle Kwan's decisions to continue in competition if she wanted to. I figured like this, if anyone doesn't like it, go out there and beat her.

Anyway, as Michelle found out, a lot can happen in 4 years.
 

temperboy28

Match Penalty
Joined
Feb 17, 2006
That's quite true, and to be totally honest, I kind of hope that Evgeny does move on to other enterprises and does not try to come back for the next Olympics.

But I didn't want to come out and say that because I always defended Michelle Kwan's decisions to continue in competition if she wanted to. I figured like this, if anyone doesn't like it, go out there and beat her.

Anyway, as Michelle found out, a lot can happen in 4 years.


I never felt the judges were purposely giving Kwan an extra cushion that she did not deserve though. Even at the 98 Olympics when she was regarded a heavy favorite, she stll narrowly lost the gold with a great if slightly cautious performance when the 2nd best skater at the time-Tara Lipinski, arguably slightly outskated her with the performance of her life and an extremely triple-triple combo and another hard triple-triple sequence at the end. Going into the 99 Worlds she was considered light years ahead of her competitors at the time, no real rival at all. She was still soundly beaten by Butyrskaya though when she faltered in both short and long, and Butyrskaya turned in uncharacteristicaly confident, error-free, and effortless performances. People say Michelle lost it by her double axel fall in the short, this is not really true though as even in the long Michelle barely took 2nd over Malinina and Soldatova, and Maria swept the first place ordinals over Michelle. This was only with 2 smaller mistakes, stepping out of a triple lutz, and singling a double axel, but Maria was flawless, Soldatova with her two triple lutz, 6 total triples, and 2 triple lutzes, and Malinina with her clean skate, were all rewarded with superior technical marks; with Michelle taking 2nd in the free skate barely on basis of excellent presentation scores.

There are other examples but Michelle earned every thing she got. I am not saying Plushenko does not, as I said he did deserve to win all the events he was in last year. However I never got the feeling Michelle was given an extra cushion by pre-determined judges and an effort being made to shut out all comers before the event even starts the way Plushenko has had the last few years, and that makes the whole event lose any appeal. I tolerated watching it the last few years, I would not tolerate another 3 years of it as a fan and would simple omit the mens event as existing until 2010.

I am not in awe of his dominance even though all his wins have been totally deserved when the judges make it so obvious they are going out of their way to shut out his competitors before events even start. The sad part is he would probably get more admiration for his wins or dominance if this was not so apparent that every skating magazine and most fans discuss it all the time. I am not in awe of his mental strength when he knows he has to fall 4 times to be in any danger if one of his biggest rivals skates perfectly with all quads. It is pretty easy to be mentally strong in that situation.
 
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Joined
Jul 11, 2003
I think the consensus is is that he deserved all his 2006 medals. However, his scores are so unjustifiably high - ok for the jumps although he does not travel through the air. He jumps up and down and that satisfies the CoP.

But he really can't spin and yet his scores for spinning are the highest! You figure. His Oly was out and out boring. No emotion whatsoever. I don't see what people call passion.

Yet he wins, but I don't think his Oly performance will ever be remembered.

Joe
 
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