http://www.vancouver2010.com/olympic-news/...k_193862Hj.htmlDec 26, 2009Olympic champion Plushenko sets new world best markSaint Petersburg (AFP) - Olympic champion Yevgeny Plushenko set a new world best total mark of 271.59 points to win his eighth domestic title at the Russian championships.
The 27-year-old scored 171.50 points in for his free skating performance, skated to Tango Amore by Edwin Marton at his hometown Jubilee ice palace.
"I can mark my performance with three points of five - maximum," Plushenko said as he geared up for the 2010 European Championships as well as another Olympics assault in Vancouver in February.
"I was practicing only one week before the Russian championships. Now I need to rehabilitate completely ahead of the European championships to gain my top form for the Olympics."
On Friday, Plushenko enjoyed a great start with a personal best mark of 100.09 points for his short programme performed to Concierto de Aranjuez by Joaquin Rodrigo, beating his previous best at the 2006 Turin Games.
But Plushenko was still far from satisfied with his short programme.
"To be honest it was not perfect skating," Plushenko said. "I was just doing my work."
"I would like to thank the judges for the bonus but it definitely was not the presentation of true Olympic level. But now I know what direction I shall move to reach it."
Sergei Voronov performed well with his 95.64 points for his short programme also surpassing Plushenko's mark from Turin. But on Saturday Voronov failed to stay in the race for the title receiving only the third best mark for his free routine.
He remained second overall, five points ahead of Artem Borodulin of Moscow, who won the bronze medal....
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http://en.rian.ru/russia/20091226/157385408.html26/12/2009Plushenko wins his 8th Russian figure skating championshipOlympic gold medalist Evgeni Plushenko won the Russian Figure Skating Championships on Saturday to become an eight-time national champion.
Plushenko, the 2006 Olympic winner and three-time world champion, scored a record of 271.59 points and was followed by Sergei Voronov with 240.01 and Artyom Borodulin, 234.92 points.
In October, Plushenko won an easy victory at Moscow's Rostelecom Cup, his first international skate since taking gold at the Torino Games. He announced in March he would return to the ice after a self-imposed absence to prepare for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.
But the champion was not happy with his performance today.
"I did not do all I had planned because of an injury and because I missed more than a week of training," he said, assessing his performance at "three on a five-grade scale."
Plushenko was reported to have knee problems, which prompted his retirement after his stunning performance in Torino.
Plushenko said his mistakes today will spur him to train more ahead of the European championship and the Vancouver Olympics.
He said he hopes to perform two quadruple jumps in his free skating program in Vancouver.
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http://rt.com/Sport/2009-12-27/pluschenko-....html?fullstoryPublished 27 December, 2009, 13:24Pluschenko claims eighth Russian championshipFigure skater Evgeny Pluschenko has set yet another world record and claimed yet another Russian national title.
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The 2006 Olympic champion was awarded a combined total of just over 270 points for his short program and free skating. The new mark is seven points higher than the previous best.
And it was more than enough to secure an eighth national gold for the 27-year-old.
On Thursday, the St. Petersburg resident also set the record for becoming the first man to get more than 100 points for a short program.
Pluschenko had undergone knee surgery two weeks before the tournament, which raised concerns over his fitness for Vancouver, but his outstanding results on home ice have so far proved otherwise.
“As for the Olympics – we plan to do better than I did today, try to avoid injuries and perform on a high level and not to make such bad mistakes like I did today. I am very glad I was able to do another quadruple jump though. It was very good training. I had three successful competitions before the Russian championship. And maybe its only for the best that I had to overcome an injury to compete here, so that I could start training in fresh and leave all the mistakes behind me and deliver the gold in Vancouver,” Evgeny Pluschenko said.
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http://loopaxles.blogspot.com/2009/12/tale...-nationals.htmlDecember 28, 2009A Tale of Two NationalsTwo big national championships took place this past week(end). Japan and Russia put their best foot forward and named national champions, solidified Olympic Teams, and gave us a few (very few) dramatic pauses.
Before the competition most had predicted that it would be smooth sailing for Kozuka, Oda, and Takahashi to make the Japanese Olympic Team but what wasn't so sure was how the three would place coming out of Nationals. Most assumed that Kozuka would get the bronze with the real fight being between Oda and Takahashi. Kozuka surprised all by sneaking into second place after Oda fell on a triple flip in the short. But in the free the world righted itself, with Kozuka slipping back to third and Oda and Takahashi going against each other. In the end Takahashi held on to win with clever choreography and some pretty spectacular (and some not so spectacular) jumping. All three men are Vancouver-bound.....
.... The men's competition in St. Petersburg was a bit of a spectacle. Evgeny Plushenko, despite a flawed short program, scored a whopping 100.09 points. Everyone is quick to point out that scores at a national championships are inflated. But there is point inflation...and there is ridiculous...I file that score under ridiculous. Plushenko breezed his way to an easy victory with another flawed performance that earned a large score. The actual fight here was between Artem Borodulin and Sergei Voronov. Voronov had a flawed free skate and was beaten by Borodulin but managed to hang on to the silver. Voronov, too, had a huge score from the short program. I'd file that one under...excessive....
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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs/go-fi...article1413419/ December 28, 2009, Beverley SmithPlushenko's 'record' offers more judging questions than answersEvgeni Plushenko is still king of Russia.
But the world? We don’t know yet.
The sports pages yesterday hailed that the defending Olympic champion from the Turin Games had set a world best mark of 271.59 points in winning his eighth Russian title at his national championships on Saturday. But good thing that the International Skating Union doesn’t count domestic scores in its records, because sometimes the home side gets a little overenthusiastic before a big event, particularly an Olympic Games. And Russian judges are the most devoted, even ebullient, of all in regards to supporting their own before they go off to war.
If Plushenko’s score was to be considered an actual world record, it would mean he had blasted the top mark set by the expressive dervish Daisuke Takahashi of Japan, who stunned everybody at the 2008 Four Continents Championships with a 264.41 score. And that was a mark handed out by international judges, with no nationalistic cards to play (hopefully).
(Also last Saturday, Takahashi won his fourth national title with 261.13 points, and he was disappointed with his performance, downgrading a quad to a triple, stumbling, and then fumbling his way out of another triple later. So high scores there, too, but with Takahashi, they have a lot of content to mark.)
And how did Plushenko skate to earn such a mark as 271.59, which is 7.18 points higher than the actual ISU record? Not bad for a guy who had an old war wound surface in the weeks before the national event, probably from training unthinkable jump combinations, like a triple Axel-quadruple toe loop (You can watch it on Plushenko’s website, evgeni-plushenko.com, and if you ask his coach Alexei Mishin nicely, he might let you see it on his iphone.) He was able to train only a week before nationals, and is faced with getting painful shots into his joints to deaden the pain en route to the Olympics.
But his performance wasn’t great enough for a score like that.
Plushenko won the short program with 100.09 points, a world best, too, even though he stepped out of a triple Lutz, and broke at the waist to land his other jumps. (Plushenko has the world record of 90.66, set in Turin.) Plushenko himself says his performance didn’t match the score he got, and he also shouldn’t have been getting bonus marks for execution. (Takahashi won the short program in Japan with 92.85 points, which would have beaten Plushenko’s world record - but it’s a domestic score. Takahashi went into the long program more than 12 points ahead of his nearest competitor.
Plushenko’s long program, to a tango that rarely became evident, was similar to his short. There were the endless crosscuts to gain speed, then the long windups to launch himself into jumps, when choreography and expression disappeared. The spins were ordinary, not crisp or fast. His famous Biellmann spin - invented by a woman and rare for a male - is long gone.
By comparison, Takahashi’s jumps come out of nowhere, suddenly, explosively. And boy, does this son of a hair stylist throw himself into a show with his whole heart. His footwork is swift and complex.
The wild and crazy marks at the Russian championships are a perfect illustration that scores cannot be compared from one competition to another, as the ISU hoped when they set up the expensive judging system system, because every judging panel is different. And the wild marks also illustrated that when judges are willing, they can do anything with the marks that they want, and the marks don’t have to reflect what actually happens on the ice.
Best place to throw on extra marks? In the presentation marks, and in the grade of execution marks for elements.
In his short program and long programs, Plushenko was getting presentation marks that ranged from averages of 9.00 to 9.32 out of 10, marks that are reserved only for the very best, the stars, the accomplished. Few get them. That means some of his hearth-home judges gave him marks in the high nines for his nearly non-existent transitions, his interpretation (of the tango?), his skating skills, his choreography.
Think the judging scandals of the Salt Lake City Games are over? Not by a long shot.
Our only hope is that when all of the skaters of the world get together, in front of international judges - that hopefully don’t exhibit biases in the world’s most important skating event - that these sort of performances aren’t rewarded. If they are, the sport is in trouble.
... and here 
