So you were actually present at the meeting where the judges decided how many falls Plushenko is allowed to have and still win.
The evidence of his scores for the performances he does is sufficient.
What the heck, why only 3? And why Plushenko bothers to jump quads and 3A-s when few 3T will bring him the gold?
That is a good question, why dont you send him a latter yourself and ask him.
Of course, the judges forgot about the cushion thing when Joubert or Sandhu won over Plushenko.
Naw they didnt. When Plushenko lost to Sandhu he fell in the short program, and gave up the equivalent of 3 more falls(8.5 points lost for a jump that did not count because he put a double toe on the end, 4.5 lost for taking out a triple salchow which was an allowed 8th jumping pass). Sandhu only made minor errors so about the equivalent of 1 fall. 4 falls worth of mistakes for Plushenko, 1for Sandhu, the 3 fall cushion that the "Plushy panel" gives him over his closest competitors was met that day, thus grudgingly the "Plushy panel" crowned a different winner then their pet.
At the Europeans Plushenko was a mess in the free program, making atleast 3 falls worth of mistakes. Joubert was flawless. Again his 3 fall cushion was met and the "Plushy panel" grudgingly crowned a more deserving winner that day, as the disaester of Plushenko and the brilliance of a chief rival that is required for his pre-destined cushion to be met again occured.
Those 2 events merely prove my point further, thank you very much.
As for the SP score at Olympics, if Lambiel managed an over 70 score for his SP at Worlds with a jump content that would embarrass a junior lady, why are you so shocked with Plushenko’s score?
Lambiel lost 7.7 for doing a triple toe-double toe instead of a quad toe-triple toe, and 4 points for falling on a triple axel. That is 11.7 points, probably a couple more points in PCS and GOE too. So his score then goes from a 72.70 to a 84.40, then up to something in the 86-87 range. Perfectly reasonable if he had skated perfectly.
Not ridiculous like the almost 91 for Plushenko as the very skater, for a program with the same jumps many others were doing, mediocre to poor spins, bare bones choreography, and more meaningless arm waving then a YMCA instructor.
Skaters like Lambiel, Buttle, Takahashi, actually have real choreographed programs, and actually put real transitions between their jumps, yet always average well below 8.0 on their PC marks. Plushenko does neither, and does connect-the-dot choppy programs, and as Elvis Stjoko once said any music could be played in the background while he is skating. Yet he routinely is far above 8.0 average on PC marks for any program he does regardless.
It would be interesting to wonder what the scores would be if they all wore bags over their heads, and their names were not announced. Plushenko might be scored to see his vastly different scores for choregraphy, transitions, interpretation, and spins if that happened.
And what about Lambiel’s PCS ? It took him some time to recover after the 3A fall, was slow, lacked attack and still, voila, almost 8-s for all the PCS ….
He averaged in the mid-7s range on his PCS mark. I guess exagerration of reality is your best argument.
I wonder how many falls Plushenko would need for his PC scores to drop that far, even with his non-existant choreography, and plain stroking from one element to the next. He would probably injure himself from all the falls and be unable to finish before they dropped that far in fact, so we would never find out.