Oh I wanted to read Plushy's biography again and I had an idea. I will post his biography here. Some chapters every two days! This is off-season
I hope you enjoy it!
This is not a professional translation, at some places it is quite free. And my English is not the best one. Thanks Dassska for the photos she has kindly sent me and for her and Дарина’s big help with Russian. I worked for several months with much love for those of Plushenko’s fans, who don’t understand Russian and I hope they will read the book with pleasure.
I have rarely read about such a sincere and honest person like Zhenya.
Mila
ANOTHER SHOW
by Evgeni Plushenko
Explanation of some words and names ( I couldn't post here)
I . Turin – I am an Olympic champion.
Till the end of the free program there is less than a minute left. I am making the last spin, approach the judges, show myself to them and say in the camera “Vsjo!” /“That’s all.”/
I did this – and won the Olympics!
I did everything I could and it appeared I stood one head above my competitors.
At last I achieved this, for which I strived all my life, since the day I stood on the skates. Twenty years of exhausting trainings, jumps and spins. And all of this for the sake of rising one day for several minutes to the first step of the Olympic pedestal.
I was going towards this victory through injuries and mortification, through many competitions, in which I won or lost, through bad living conditions and misery, through the suffering and privation of my relatives. And that’s it – the Olympic gold, a round medal of 750 gram, is in my hands.
To the Olympics I went in a perfect form.
p.4
I was going out to the ice to skate the short program and there was a moment at the last but one jump when I suddenly felt : one more second and I would fall down. And then something strange happened : I felt like someone’s strong and confident hand hold me under my elbow and did not leave me to slip down.
The short program I skated impeccably, made everything that had been conceived. When the music finished and the judges gave me the marks I realized that at this program the competitors could not overtake me. I was ten marks ahead of them and this was much.
Then, when I went out for the free program I was calm. Somewhere deep in my soul there was a cloud of tender agitation – I should not make any mistake, especially at the complicated elements. “Hold on!” – I told myself.
And the same happened once again. I knew definitely, that I would have fallen down on the fourth jump. But at the last moment I felt as if someone held me and helped me stay balanced.
I still cannot understand what it was. The wing of the guardian-angel? …I don’t know…
As I made the last complicated element during the performance I suddenly realized – now I only have to skate it to the end. I already felt, I knew I have won the Olympics.
I had to wait for the marks, but at this moment I had no doubts any more, that they will give me the highest marks. There was simply no other way.
In Turin all was going well – at the lots I got to skate before my main competitors. And this is always a good sign. I had raised the bar as high as possible at the very beginning, so that no body can reach it and then nobody could beat me.
p.5
While I was sitting on the bench after my performance I didn’t feel anything except devastation. There was such a feeling as if after a hard day with intense physical fatigue I had drunken a glass of wine – I almost fainted. I was watching the marks and didn’t feel any joy from the victory. I felt NO-THING. Inside me there was an emptiness, a burned down emptiness.
I walked to the changing room like an automat. Then I watched the rest of the performances of my competitors. I realized that I had to watch it to the end. But I myself could not see almost anything any more. I was standing and thinking : after all I am not in vain in sport, not in vain I have overcome hardships, not in vain I had had injuries.
Already on the podium, when the Russian banner was raised and our anthem played, chill went down my spine. But no adrenaline, only fatigue. Not the ordinary fatigue indeed, but a pleasant one.
I gave all my strength, emotions, all my energy to this program, to the audience and the judges. I cried “That’s all !” /Rus. ‘Vsjo!”/ with the last bars of the music and as if I splashed the last remains of my energy.
Later I found out that 1000 kilometers away from the Italian town of Turin, in my country house, this phrase was uttered by my mom at the same time.
There is such a tradition in my family – the members of my family never watch me on-air. Moreover when I perform at important competitions. And this were the Olympics, where I went only to win.
My mom switched off the tv and placed it on recording. All my family – my parents, my sister and my niece went to the other room.
p.6
They watched another program and talked about everything else but not my performance. They were all waiting for the telephone ring. Mom took me to her heart awfully, she understood like nobody else how important for me this Olympics was. And when they rang home and told her that I had skated the free program and all was well, she sighed : “Vsjo!” This word we should have said simultaneously.
p.7
II – I am not a girl, I am a boy.
I am still sorry that I didn’t keep my first skates.
They were given to me just by chance. My mom went to the shop and took me with her. We met an acquaintance of ours with her little daughter. The girl was crying.
- Tanya, you know how difficult it was to buy these skates. They were delivered to us by our acquaintances in Moscow. And my daughter doesn’t want to skate at any case.
- It is cold and pain there! – the daughter was wet with tears – and I am falling down continuously.
- Let’s give your skates to them,- suggested the woman totally unexpectedly.
- Let’s give them to him! – the girl suddenly stopped crying.
- Well, I will give them to him immediately – the mother hoped the girl would give it a second thought.
But the girl was stubborn.
- Give them, I will not skate.
Then the woman took the skates from her daughter and hung them on my neck. This was destiny.
p.8
Perhaps if this meeting hadn’t taken place, my parents would have never thought to take me to the figure skating section.
When we went home I put my skates on, mom laced the boots and we went out on the street. I was happy and stepped carefully on the crunchy snow trying not to fall down.
At this time the former owner of the skates was going back home and saw us again.
- Why do you skate on the snow?
- And where shall we skate? – asked my mom astonished.
- Go to the Palace of Sport, there is a section for figure skating. Boys are taken immediately like hot cakes.
And we went. I was standing next to the barrier and watching with wide opened eyes how the children were skating. They glided, fell down, stood up and made some figures. The most simple ones, of course, but it was so great! I felt like skating too.
- I want to become a hockey-player,- I declared to my mom. When I was four years old I was convinced that only hockey-players skate on skates.
To the Palace of Sport mom brought not only me, but also my elder sister Lena, who was then 9 years old.
The coach Tatiana Nikolaevna Skala looked at Lena:
- This girl is grown up already, she has already grown up much for figure skating.- then she looked at me : - But this girl, here, I will take.
- What girl, - said I indignantly, - I am a boy!
- That’s even better! Do you have skates? Come on Monday.
When I was four I really looked more like a girl than like a boy : long hair, big eyes, and with the nose just the opposite – it was small then. I looked like a little, tender, comely girl, but actually I was a real fighter.
p.9
I am very flexible. Even before the appearance of the skates in my life I enjoyed tumbling, turning over into a roll. My parents watched me and laughed :
- You are made out of plasticine.
The coach also noticed this immediately:
- You know, your boy is very flexible, - she told my mom,- Here one has to sit at side-splits, to do bridges, fish. Come to the next training, see how we stretch.
They showed us how to stretch correctly. And mom set to work. She stretched not only me, but also my sister. Lena realized quickly, that this is painful and decided that she doesn’t need the side-split.
It hurt to tears. While mom was stretching me I several times fell into hysterics, I laughed and wept at the same time.
- Mom, what are you doing. It hurts.
- Be patient for a while and it will not hurt any more,- mom talked me over and went on stretching me.
- Will you buy me a chewing gum? – I laughed hysterically. For a chewing gum I would have suffered anything.
For four days my mom did what the other parents did for a month. I sat without any problems in side and front split, lifted up my legs to my ears. It didn’t hurt any more.
Then I started stretching alone. I took two chairs and hung down in a split – like Jean-Claude Van Damme in the films, which my parents watched.
The coach was simply shocked when I came to the training a completely stretched out boy. But, of course, at the beginning on the ice nothing worked .When I went out on the ice I started falling down. I was hurting my head painfully, falling down on my coccyx. On my hands there was no undamaged place – I hurt my hands all the time on the cold and sharp ice.
p.10
Out of affront, that nothing works, out of helplessness, I cried out and did not try to stand on the skates any more, but simply crept on the barrier. Then Tatyana Nikolaevna took me in her hands, skated in circle and cradled me. I calmed down and went out again on the ice.
I was new on the rink and the fellows in the group have already been skating half an year. They could glide on the ice, make “swallow” /arabesque spiral/^ and to me they seemed real masters. My legs went apart, I was falling down all the time and all the group laughed at me to be such a small good-for-nothing. And I started crying again.
At one such moment Tatyana Nikolayevna Skala came to me and said:
- Zhenya, why are you crying?
- They laugh at me.
- Do your best. If you do your best, you will soon exceed them.
She was able to inspire me with confidence. I went out on the ice and trained hardly, till I made the required element, steps back or a “fir-tree” /basic stroking/^. I stopped paying any attention to the jokes and intrigues of the seniors.
Usually, we came with mom earlier at the training. Before us skated the hockey-players. I stayed behind the barrier and watched them with wide opened eyes. I envied them – they had sticks, a puck, a goal! I had already realized that hockey and figure skating are two completely different kinds of sport.
- Let’s go to play hockey as well, - I asked my mom.
- I don’t know, son. Let’s see how it will be with the time. When you learn to skate well, we will go to hockey as well.
But when I had already learned how to skate I did not want hockey any more. I fell in love with figure skating.
Till today I like spins less. I adore the jumps, the step sequence and the spins come last. It is so since my childhood.
p.11
Till today one and the same thing happens – at important competitions blood runs from my nose. In my early childhood blood running from the nose was a real disaster.
Once I frightened my relatives to death. The blood run so much, that they called the ambulance. While we were waiting my sheets were changed several times – the blood run for half an hour. I didn’t feel any pain, but I was frightened, it seemed to me that the whole room is flooded with my blood. I had never seen horror movies till then and I could compare what was happening with creepy story, in which the protagonist finds himself in an intricate situation. And the protagonist was me. While I was thinking about all this I lost consciousness.
Then they told me that the colour of my face blended with that of the pillow – it went so pale from blood lost. Even the doctors from the ambulance did not wake me up out of pity. They told mom that I have something with the vessels and thorough examinations should be made.
Since I started training sport this happened less frequently. The same was with my snivels and coughing.
With the vestibularis the disaster was awful. I couldn’t stand any transport, I felt sick everywhere – in a car, in a bus, in a trolley, in a tram. It turned for me into a real trial.
- Mom, I feel bad! – I worn mom and we manage to jump at the last moment at the bus stop. I feel sick badly. We breathe fresh air for 15 minutes. We change to the tram and stand in front, where it sways least. And when at the end we arrive at the Palace of Sport I am green all over.
We always went out two hours earlier, so that we had time for the necessary changes of transport.
p.12
On the ice I used to forget completely that I felt sick. But only till we started spinning.
The coach gave us homework – to spin on a special disk. Everyday for many years I stepped on this disk and all started from the beginning.
I was spinning. My head started whirling, I felt sick and at the last moment I gave up:
- Mom, I will vomit right now, - I shouted.
Mom held me and dragged me into the bathroom. I drunk water and stepped on the disk again.
Mom took me to doctors and told them how my “home training” was taking place. The doctors calmed her down, saying that it was normal, that many children have a weak vestibularis and one just had to train it. And we trained it. After an year I had completely forgotten how it feels when you are sick.
I got used to that hateful home disk and even made it my friend. I already spinned on it in my free time alone, without mom’s reminding me about that.
At first, when you learn how to jump, you have to calculate when to make the rotation, where to put your leg, how to group yourself. When you rotate you feel like your hands would be torn off from the speed. And when you rotate for twenty years you know exactly what speed you should gather, how you should turn and group yourself. All of this is very important.
When you become an experienced sportsman, the elements of turning and the most elaborate jump is made automatically. At this instance, all the inside resources start working. You don’t think any more where to put you hands and legs.
But to come to this point where you don’t think about such things, I had to go through pain, nausea, vomiting, blood. Later, on the ice when I did the rotation, there appeared sometimes hemorrhages, it was bleeding from under my fingernails. Sometimes it was frightening, because you could not understand what was happening with my body. But I overstepped this fear as well, overstepped it and went forward.
I remember very well the very first competitions in my life. Mom sew me a costume : from the shop she bought a cheap lilac female chemise and cut out a shirt for me; and the trousers she made up from someone’s sporting pants, which she acquired from the pawnshop.
At this competitions I took sixth place from sixteen. Having in mind that I was skating for three months and the others for half an year, this was a magnificent result.
After this exam the coach took me seriously in hand – she said I had to develop my capabilities at any cost.
At last, everything worked. I remembered the programs immediately and the coach praised me. In Autumn, when I had already trained for more than half an year, I became a champion in my grade. From then on I had never given my first place to anybody.
continue...
I know kids who wants to be like Putin in hockey than for example Ovechkin. And it is always accompanied with funny shows where hockey players are telling abot how difficult to learn losing to Putin (something like antihochey) 
