Oh, honestly... Men's short program
Feb. 13th, 2014 10:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
heavenly_pearlI've never been a fan of Evgeny Plushenko, but this just takes the cake.
For those who don't follow skating, here's a little background. Russia only had one spot (out of a possible three) in the men's competition. Although Plushenko actually finished second at Russian Nationals, the federation controversially decided to give him that spot after the national champion, Maxim Kovtun, didn't have the best showing at Europeans (which, btw, Plushenko declined to skate at).The thought was that after the team competition, Plushenko would claim a convenient injury right after the team event (believable, considering all the injuries and surgeries he's had the past few years), allowing Kovtun the chance to skate in the individual men's competition. That way he'd get his second gold medal (which he did in the team event), then avoid the embarrassment of not even medaling in the individual. (He really had next to no chance against Chan and Hanyu and several other medal contenders.) However, for some crazy reason, Plushenko decided that he would go on to skate in the individual, only to withdraw during the warm-up right before his skate -- far too late to allow Kovtun to take his place. Argh! Okay, it seems like he was in a lot of pain during the warm-up, which I do sympathize with -- note that I'm not watching, but reading things on a skating forum I lurk at -- but still, the selfishness of that man! Seriously, wasn't four medals enough for him? Why did he even attempt to do the mens' competition? He had to have known that skating in the individual event would be too much for his thirty-one year old, injured body, and now he's denied a young man a chance to skate in his first Olympics for what amounted to no reason at all. Even if, for the sake of argument, he honestly thought he could get through two more programs, the classy thing to do would have been to withdraw in a timely manner and allow Kovtun to skate.
This seals it. I hate Evgeny Plushenko.
In other skating news, wow to Yuzuru Hanyu posting over 100(!) points on his short, so happy that Jason Brown will be in the top ten going into the free even without a quad, with a theoretical chance of winning bronze (third through sixth, where Jason is, are all in the 86 range, so it's anybody's game at this point, but again, it'll be tough without a quad), and I'm kinda dreading watching Jeremy Abbott's program tonight, because he evidently had a really nasty fall on his quad. Poor baby, he had such a terrible short in the team event, so I was hoping he would do really well in the individual event.
For those who don't follow skating, here's a little background. Russia only had one spot (out of a possible three) in the men's competition. Although Plushenko actually finished second at Russian Nationals, the federation controversially decided to give him that spot after the national champion, Maxim Kovtun, didn't have the best showing at Europeans (which, btw, Plushenko declined to skate at).The thought was that after the team competition, Plushenko would claim a convenient injury right after the team event (believable, considering all the injuries and surgeries he's had the past few years), allowing Kovtun the chance to skate in the individual men's competition. That way he'd get his second gold medal (which he did in the team event), then avoid the embarrassment of not even medaling in the individual. (He really had next to no chance against Chan and Hanyu and several other medal contenders.) However, for some crazy reason, Plushenko decided that he would go on to skate in the individual, only to withdraw during the warm-up right before his skate -- far too late to allow Kovtun to take his place. Argh! Okay, it seems like he was in a lot of pain during the warm-up, which I do sympathize with -- note that I'm not watching, but reading things on a skating forum I lurk at -- but still, the selfishness of that man! Seriously, wasn't four medals enough for him? Why did he even attempt to do the mens' competition? He had to have known that skating in the individual event would be too much for his thirty-one year old, injured body, and now he's denied a young man a chance to skate in his first Olympics for what amounted to no reason at all. Even if, for the sake of argument, he honestly thought he could get through two more programs, the classy thing to do would have been to withdraw in a timely manner and allow Kovtun to skate.
This seals it. I hate Evgeny Plushenko.
In other skating news, wow to Yuzuru Hanyu posting over 100(!) points on his short, so happy that Jason Brown will be in the top ten going into the free even without a quad, with a theoretical chance of winning bronze (third through sixth, where Jason is, are all in the 86 range, so it's anybody's game at this point, but again, it'll be tough without a quad), and I'm kinda dreading watching Jeremy Abbott's program tonight, because he evidently had a really nasty fall on his quad. Poor baby, he had such a terrible short in the team event, so I was hoping he would do really well in the individual event.