Evegni Plushenko Takes Potshots at Evan Lysacek, Sets Up Skating Cold War

Figure Skating is one of those Olympic Sports I would rather kick myself than pretend to be interested in, but Russian Evegni Plushenko and American Evan Lysacek have accomplished something that NBC, Bob Costas, and even Michelle Kwan never did.

They have guaranteed I will tune in for the men's long program.

Russia and the United States have had competitions of many sorts. The occupation of Berlin after WWII. The Space Race. The Cold War. 1980 Olympic Hockey. And my personal favorite, Ivan Drago against Rocky Balboa.

Last night, Russian Men's figure skater Evigni Plushenko tried to replay the press conference from Rocky IV.

“I believe the future of figure skating lies in the quad jumps,” said Plushenko, with  a sneer on his face. “We can discuss a lot whether it is good or not or whether it is good to focus on other things, but by doing so we are going backward in time.”

Plushenko made this comment regarding American competitor Evan Lysacek, whose score of 90.30 sits just .55 behind Plushenko's score of 90.85 after the short program yesterday.

Plushenko's barb was made in reference to Lysacek's refusal to incorporate any sort of quad jump into his program after injuring his foot attempting a quad last year.

Plushenko has seemed to be unbeatable in recent years, and his exploits include easily winning gold at the Turin Olympics to cap one of the most dominant stretches in skating. His only losses from 2002-06 were at the 2004 European championships and the Grand Prix final, where he finished second in both.

Plushenko is a three-time world champion. He retired after Turin but continued skating in shows and made-for-TV specials in Russia. Evegni decided to make comeback in spring 2009 and showed little signs of rust in routing the field at the Rostelecom Cup.

Lysacek, on the other hand, is like the little dog yapping at the heels of Plushenko. An American has not taken the gold in men's figure skating since Brian Boitano in Calgary back in 1988.

Lysacek returned fire: “For me, I have spent a lot of time working on every aspect of my routine. If you ask a speed skater if one stroke is more important than another, they wouldn’t say that it was. It is easy to take the simpler moves for granted, but I am not going to do that and I will maximize the points and importance of them.”

To which Plushenko responded: “Of course we need transition and spins and steps, harder and harder,” he said. “But I don’t know, I was making triples in 1994. I know in speed skating they have timing [world records], it gets better. Biathlon, they have new timing. I think we stopped. Some people are going to say it is wrong. But that’s my point.”

Plushenko seems to be either baiting Lysacek into ditching his planned routine in favor of trying the more difficult quad, or playing to the judges by reminding them how much more difficult his routine would seem to be when compared to Lysacek's.

The latest episode of the Cold War will be resumed tomorrow night in the men's free skate at the Pacific Coliseum, with enough drama for everyone.