Plushenko will honour us with his presence in 2010!

[Mathman]

Thanks for the summary translation, Ximena.

 

[seniorita]

A plushy friend died in the train accident in russia and he looked a mess today. I knew this was not a good week .
Thanx for interview Ximena. I m not happy he says he is in pain in training. I dont want a pain plushy for any medal in the world.
The story about the tradition his mum walking him to Yubileney from childhood to 2006 is very cute. And that she repeats it now.
Panini Memorial is on 9-12 , not on 2 December I always laugh with Plushy cause he always confuses his competition dates. I hope he remembers the correct ones for Vancouver.

 

[Nadine]

Thanks Ximena & seniorita for the latest news on Evgeni.

As the Olympics draws nearer, athletes & fans get anxious & nervous, but they shouldn't be, what will be will be.

Evgeni has nothing to worry about. His destiny has already be written, just follow your destiny, Evgeni. The skate gods are by your side, you truly do skate with the gods...

Sincerely,

Nadine

 

[Dee4707]

Hey Dee why you dont come more often in Plushy thread?:yes:

Seniorita, I have missed coming to the Plush thread since Alexei had his baby...can't believe he is probably changing diapers.

Anyhow, I loved this comment from the blog you posted.

Plushenko has proven to be the strongest skater to bring figure skating back into the international spotlight. He's not just coming back for Russia, he's coming back for figure skating.

Good for him!!!

BTW, where is Ant????

 

[seniorita]

Yes ant, I ve missed you, where are you? Do you hang around in the changing diapers thread as well?

 

[antmanb]

Ha! No i've not been in that thread. I've been participating more on the outraged threads on the British Nationals recently in FSU.

Our corrupt fed have just screwed one of our dance couples out of a chance to build on their trip to Europeans last year and placed an error filled just-up-from-juniors couple ahead of them despite errors like falls in the twizzle sequence etc.

I feel justifiably ranty about it since i watched the OD and FD live so it's one of the few times that I actually was there and don't have to rely on youtube or tv (not that there is any youtube or TV of British nationals )

Ant

 

[bigsisjiejie]

Ha! No i've not been in that thread. I've been participating more on the outraged threads on the British Nationals recently in FSU.

Our corrupt fed have just screwed one of our dance couples out of a chance to build on their trip to Europeans last year and placed an error filled just-up-from-juniors couple ahead of them despite errors like falls in the twizzle sequence etc.

I feel justifiably ranty about it since i watched the OD and FD live so it's one of the few times that I actually was there and don't have to rely on youtube or tv (not that there is any youtube or TV of British nationals )

Ant

Been hearing about that senior dance competition--apparently you have lots of company in thinking the entire thing was rigged. Interesting to note that the young annointed couple with the flawed skates that came in silver, apparently jumped up in overall points from the 130's from international judges in intl competitions this season, to nearly 160 in the Brit Nationals, and without brilliant clean skating. :scratch: Why are Chitwood/Hanretty being dissed by the judges? Federation pressure? Because she's not British (as I understand it, they weren't in the running for an Oly place anyway)? Fed hates either of the skaters or their coach? It's a shame if the best couples aren't being rewarded in the placements and the award of intl competition spots. Seems to me that's overall counterproductive to success of British skating in general, not to mention morale of the skaters given the shaft.

 

[antmanb]

Been hearing about that senior dance competition--apparently you have lots of company in thinking the entire thing was rigged. Interesting to note that the young annointed couple with the flawed skates that came in silver, apparently jumped up in overall points from the 130's from international judges in intl competitions this season, to nearly 160 in the Brit Nationals, and without brilliant clean skating. :scratch: Why are Chitwood/Hanretty being dissed by the judges? Federation pressure? Because she's not British (as I understand it, they weren't in the running for an Oly place anyway)? Fed hates either of the skaters or their coach? It's a shame if the best couples aren't being rewarded in the placements and the award of intl competition spots. Seems to me that's overall counterproductive to success of British skating in general, not to mention morale of the skaters given the shaft.

Sorry to Hijack the plush thread! I know seniorita will forgive me though!

The sad thing about the whole thing is that the young couple that got the silver are a very good and promising team, but IMO they still skate like a junior team and i don't think they should have been held up as they were at the nationals.

As everyone has pointed out because Christina Chitwood doesn't, as yet, have British citizenship they weren't even a factor for the Olympics anyway, and putting Coombes&Buckland third (where they should have been, though an argument for 4th could be made) would have meant that they got to go to the Olympics, maybe some negotiation could have taken place allowing Coombes and Buckland to go to Europeans as prep for the Olys but let Chitwood and Hanretty go to the worlds.

The finer points of UK skatnig politics are lost on me but Chitwood&Hanretty's coach is Jimmy Young, for some reason (and no-one seems able or maybe willing to describe what happened) he fell out of favour with NISA (it may have been around the time he went to Colorado to coach there.

But then politcally i don't really know where that leaves things because Coombes& Buckland's coach is Philip Askew who NISA majorly screwed over by not sending him and then partner Marika Humphreys to Nagano in 1998 because they came 16th at worlds and didn't get the requisite 15th place. So I can hardly see him being in bed with NISA...unless because of his experience he's playing the politcal game better than his coaches did?

Who knows, but one thing is abundantly clear from attending the championships - the UK skating world is incredibly small, incredibly incestuous and chock full to the brim with self agrandising people. You might have mistakenly thought you were at royal ascot for some of the outfits and preening that was going on

Ant

 

[seniorita]

Sorry to Hijack the plush thread! I know seniorita will forgive me though!

For that, you can write like a whole page of a post, but to watch and write about Plushy in Rostelecom you cant..:sheesh:it's been two months now, lets get moving!!!

I kid..I m glad you had a great time at nationals and you watched the competition liveAnd from what you write, it looks like it was very interesting

 

[Ximena]

This is another interview, almost nothing about skating, it's about his personal life.

He talks about his wife, his son, his life in general, it's quite nice.

- You've came back after a three-year break, and that's a quite serious and responsible step.
- I came back thanks to Yana. She convinced me that I could still skate and set up records, that being 27 was not a limit for an athlete. I didn't agree with her, I was against it. So much time had passed and it was very difficult to make up for it. And also I have all the titles there are so, honestly, there was very little motivation.

- So what did Yana told you to motivate you to train?

- She listened to me and said: «You are not a two-time Olympic champion yet». I didn't have a comeback for that so I started training (Plushenko laughs) . It's difficult after a break to start one, two, three or even four trainings a day. Also it was hard to lose those extra 10 kgs. So therefore I want to thank Yana, my coach Alexei Nikolaevich, my choreographer David Advysh and of course my beloved mom and everyone who believe and trust in me.

The rest is on the link, sorry I don't post it all but it's a little long
http://evgenyplushenkodevotion.yuku...he-skates-are-off-Non-skating-thread-III.html

ETA: Sorry if you clicked before this message, there was a mistake there that I already fixed, sorry for the format, google chrome and yuku don't agree much.

 

[seniorita]

Little PlushyJunior started skating That would be a great image, skating with his dad I hope all things are figured out and he can see his son a lot now.
Thanx Ximena for the translation, i tried google first and some weird stuff came out.

 

[Koboldspike]

tickets for Tallinn

Has anybody an idea how to get some tickets for the Euros in Tallinn without having a credit card (not via Piletileevi)??? Second problem: the men`s free skate is officially sold out, although there seem to be tickets available for the short programme. Any other site with tickets to offer? Or does anybody want to sell his/her own? Maybe one of you booked a hotel which offers tickets? Would be grateful for help.

 

[antmanb]

For that, you can write like a whole page of a post, but to watch and write about Plushy in Rostelecom you cant..:sheesh:it's been two months now, lets get moving!!!

Oh dear!

Just for you seniorita I watched the Rostelcom SP and LP on youtube.

*keeps mouth firmly shut*

Needless to say to say i didn't like either programme. The LP i nearly switched off half way through but stuck with it!

The positive thing i will say is that the jumps are insane. He's gotten them back to the standards they were in 2006 and while it is amazing that he does so many jumps back to back with very little set up, it's also a criticism because he just skates around landing jump after jump after jump with no regard to the music.

I'll see if i can sleep on it and be more kind in my thoughts about the programmes!

Ant

 

[seniorita]

Oh dear...
Maybe it was better afterall if you kept the mouth more firmly shut
But I was more interested in spins and steps comments How about you watch again after the sleep?(joke..)
But I appreciate you did this for me. Poor Ant, I m sorry you had to go through this.

 

[Nadine]

Thanks, Ximena, as always for another wonderful article about Evgeni. He has a beautiful family.

But what I really wanted to post about is a scene from the movie Billy Elliott that reminds me of Evgeni, and how I feel about him & his skating, this clip says it better than I ever could (he literally is a king/a giant/a Danseur Nobel amongst the corps):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Uyg24hOiog

 

[Milas]

I'm a fan, of sorts, and even I don't want to rewatch his latest programmes so why would Ant want to go through that torture? Let's face it, they're bad in comparison to his earlier programmes and other skaters, too, the way they are now and unless he'll do something about it, that's how they'll stay. So, I'm hoping that he'll work on them (he better!), or change them entirely (even better), but I'm not holding my breath however - I'm much too cynical for that.

 

[antmanb]

Oh dear...
Maybe it was better afterall if you kept the mouth more firmly shut
But I was more interested in spins and steps comments How about you watch again after the sleep?(joke..)
But I appreciate you did this for me. Poor Ant, I m sorry you had to go through this.

Well you know what - the steps i didn't think were that bad...maybe because since 2006 everyone is flapping their arms so Plush didn't seem as "flappy" as before (evan has him completely beaten in the flapping arm wars ). I think what i used to hate more was his head banging around as well - and that has gone so i was pretty glad. The issue I still have (which I have always had) is that except for a few programmes towards the start of his career, the step sequences are always fast and frenetic, never slower with more held edges. In the SP it even required a cut of music that wasn't Aranjuez to get the fast footwork in! I also thought he was going so fast he looked like he was falling out of turns and generally thought the steps looked quite sloppy, and (for him) he seemed slow. What i mean by that was that while his body was executing things quickly, his actual speed across the ice seemed slow, which made the step sequences look worse, for me. At least previously when he did those fast steps he was also moving across the ice very quickly as well.

I would have liked to have seen more fluid steps with clear difficult turns, i think the tech panel were very kind calling his levels because the few difficult turns he attempted looked a little jumped to me.

The spins equally looked pretty good too - everyone seems to be doing the crawl-to-a-stop-pull-free-leg-behind-skating-foot-in-forward-sit-spin variation and no-one keeps their speed through that one so i was ok with it. I thought his forward sit spin is massively improved and sits down. His back sit is better but not quite as good as the forward one.

I still don't like the upright ending to his combo spin with his leg sticking out and his hands up as if he's going to grab his head....i hope that isn't conisdered a difficult variation

Ant

 

[seniorita]

it took you a while but... Oh, sometimes is how something is being said I guess, it must be the british accent that confuses me:scowl:, cause how you manage that you say the most crappy stuff about Plush and i still think it is fine, even more funny i will never know

Maybe cause there are true I guess, (not all you say) when i saw the video of Rostel afterwards, it hit me about his turns in the opposite direction in Lp and his straight also in Sp. I think he is troubled with new rules. And when he goes faster his edges are not clear but then only kozuka was amazing with speed and edges. Maybe also Amodio. His circulars though , especially in Lp which is slow it was a good surprise. All that from video, cause live the wow factor was too grand to notice and also the Plushenko factor and he was faster live anyway. I only noticed back in russia the lack of speed in spins, pancake one, but the one you mention last I haven given name to it, I call it 'the flower spin".

 

[antmanb]

it took you a while but... Oh, sometimes is how something is being said I guess, it must be the british accent that confuses me:scowl:, cause how you manage that you say the most crappy stuff about Plush and i still think it is fine, even more funny i will never know

Genuinely though i think it's super impressive that he's got back to where he is (or rather was then, i guess he's probably imporved since then?) in terms of jumps. It seems that the programmes in Rostelcom were not that far from where he was in Torino in 2006 so really he's done exceptionally well. The things i was critical of could easily be made of otehr skaters too, and while there are a number of other skaters with more transitions, choreograhpy and interpretation going in their programmes, there's still not a single skater out there that has his jumping ability, so i guess it all evens out.

I only noticed back in russia the lack of speed in spins, pancake one, but the one you mention last I haven given name to it, I call it 'the flower spin".

i like that name for it!

Ant

 

[Tonichelle]

(evan has him completely beaten in the flapping arm wars ).

just when I start to like you, you say something like this, Ant! Seriously!









okay, not that seriously.