Turin – Johnny Weir is impressed with anything Russian. America’s three-time defending figure skating champion taught himself to write the Russian alphabet when he was in grade school, taught himself to speak Russian as an adult and wants a Moscow home address some day. He’s entertaining himself here at the Olympics with DVDs about the Russian czars.
So you could take what he says about Russia’s three-time world champion Evgeni Plushenko with a grain of Siberian wheat – unless you saw Plushenko skate Tuesday night.
Plushenko, with as much pressure as any athlete in these Olympics, performed nearly flawlessly in the most difficult program of the night. It produced a lead that practically puts a gold medal in his St. Petersburg apartment as he enters Thursday’s long program with a personal best of 90.66, a moon shot away from the 80.00 of the second-place Weir and 79.04 of defending world champ Stephane Lambiel of Switzerland.
“I’ve been saying it over and over that he’s the one to beat,” Weir said. “Look at his short program: 90 points. He made almost as much in one program as some make in an entire competition. I’m not conceding. I’m just being realistic.”
Plushenko, 23, has lost only once in two years, not counting last year’s worlds from which he withdrew with a groin injury. His first three elements Tuesday were a quad-triple combination followed by a triple axel and a triple lutz.
That’s the two toughest jumps in skating to start the program. He nailed all with only a slight hesitation in the combination and, as the second performer of the night, his score hung like a thundercloud over the rest of the competition. Weir, 21, was asked what it would take for Plushenko to lose.
“If he falls three times, maybe, maybe, somebody will squeeze by, by a point or so,” he said.
Plushenko, who short-circuited a gold-medal duel in 2002 with countryman Alexei Yagudin by falling in the short program, wasn’t terribly cocky after the epic performance. He was whisked through the mixed zone, where the reporters lurk, with famed coach Alexei Mishin tugging him by the sleeve and telling the eager press, “Nyet! Nyet! Nyet!”
Later in a news conference, Plushenko said, “Yeah, I have 10 points more. Of course I’m happy with a personal best in the Olympic Games. But I should perform the same as tonight in the long program. If I do my best I can win.”
Weir put as much pressure on him as he could, landing every element with his signature program to “The Swan,” complete with waving his arms, swan-like, at the conclusion.
“Certainly going into second place ahead of the world champion and world silver medalist (sixth-place Jeffrey Buttle of Canada) is something I’m very proud of, but I’m not expecting anything,” the Newark, Del., resident said. “Just going and putting on a good free program will be just as big of an accomplishment as taking a silver and bronze medal.”
He decided not to debut a shaky quad. He’ll need it to catch Plushenko but could blow a medal by falling. Weir will decide how he feels Thursday and cautioned, “I could wake up tomorrow and feel like Nick Nolte’s mug shot.”
Of the other Americans, Matt Savoie, who trains part-time in Colorado Springs, is eighth and world bronze- medalist Evan Lysacek of Naperville, Ill., is 10th.
Staff writer John Henderson can be reached at 303-820-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com.
