Machida seems to be peaking now, and he will be 28 in 2018. IMO, his presentation qualities rank below Hanyu and Fernandez.
Well very few skaters even compete at the Olympics at 27, let alone are contenders.
should get this loud and clear, he got his chance (in 2014) and still didn't win
its game over and he should just retire officially for good
Why on earth would you label Plushenko's return in 2010 a failure--let alone a bigger failure than Irina Slutskaya in 2006? Plush retired with a bunch of injuries, didn't compete for four years, and ran around in shows doing triple toe loops. He came back, won Cup of Russia, won Europeans, won Olympic silver and in the process became the only man since Grafstrom to win 3+ Olympic medals. IIRC, he was the only person in Vancouver to land quads in both programs and skate clean. The biggest change seems to be the way the judges (and rules) were scoring people: the quad being out of favour, the Olympics happening in North America, Plush seemingly just waltzing in back here for a second gold--all of which worked against Plushenko. The situation changed a lot more than his skating did. No, of course he wasn't as good as he was back in 2004. But compared to returning pros of Lillehammer--the precedent--he did remarkably well.Well very few skaters even compete at the Olympics at 27, let alone are contenders. The only recent ones I can think of are Irina Slutskaya in 2006, and Evgeny Plushenko in 2010, but for Plushenko especialy it was a failure in a sense (especialy in his own mind) as he lost to someone he would have beaten by about 30 points only 4 years earlier. 25 for singles skaters is usually about the limit for that. Of course it is anyones choice if they want to try. Fumie is still trying for god knows what at age 34 after all. Chan could try to compete at the Games at 27 if he wants, but I dont think it is very likely all things considered.
before the Olympics
Everyone's PCS and scores in general goes up over time all the time (yet one of many things you seem clueless to given your attempts of comparing scores even 5 or 6 years apart sometimes). At some point soon they will have to a crackdown and make it alot harder again as now skaters are hitting constant +3s and 10s in PCS and there will be nowhere to go. D&W and V&M for instance have reached the point of nearly all perfect scores. In a relative sense his PCS are far closer to his competitors than they were even a year or two ago. That is what the previous posters were referring to.
Wasn't Plushenko sort-of-injured in 2010? I thought he was already partially bionic by that point. Chan has the advantage of having all his original bones and tendons still in place. I think he can challenge for a medal, maybe even gold, if he uses voodoo sabotage on a competitor or two.