halfway in figure skating

So it came to pass that Evgeni Plushenko only took silver from the Vancouver Olympics. Evan Lysacek, the defending world champion won the gold without the quad. While Plushenko performed a quad-triple toe as his first combination jump of his free program. A lot of people are weighing in on their opinions. Prominent Canadian skaters are split with their views. Elvis Stojko, the first skater to land a quadruple-double in competition thinks Lysacek's gold killed the sport. Patrick Chan, who placed fifth in the event, opines that the new generation of skaters favor a more balanced program. It’s great to see Plushenko back. It has been boring without his aerodyanamics and artistry during his retirement. It’s seldom to see skaters attempt the quad these days when the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics medalists all composed of quadruple jumpers; Alexei Yagudin, Plushenko, Timothy Goebel. In 2006 in Turin, it was Plushenko, Stephane Lambiel and Jeffrey Buttle in the podium, all landed their quads in combinations cleanly. Was Lysacek LP score a step backwards for the men’s competition? Not necessarily, I counted nine precised triples in Lysacek’s program, that’s a lot. Plushenko had six. What I’m wondering is why didn’t Plushenko at least replicate his Turin program, like do the quad-triple-double combo instead of just the quad-triple? Or include another quad in the latter part of his choreography and what was that music in his short program? His timing in the short components, as shown in the slow motion, was also off.

Now to the magnificence of the pairs competition. Like Plushenko, Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo have been retired for three years. They are beautiful to watch; very elegant and graceful. I like them better than the 2006 Gold Medalists Tatiana Totmianina and Maxim Marinin. If not for Zhao’s Achilles tendon injury in 2005, Shen and Zhao would have had more time to prepare for the Turin Olympics and had given the Russian top pair more time to reflect on their oppositions. But finally, they are standing atop the podium and I couldn’t be happier. They were pushed in the long program not by the defending champions from Germany but by the sublime free skate of compatriots Pan Jing and Tong Jian. Sadly, those glorious executions in Vancouver might be the last we’ll see of Shen and Zhao, thank goodness for you tube or for a dvd version of the figure skating in Vancouver.