Turin – The Russian sports agent waved his hand along the sea of white and red filling one end of the Palavela. His hand passed over spectators who had two items in their possession: a Russian flag and a lot of money.
Oh, yes. One other thing: a love for a Russian male figure skater whose popularity engulfs a society that stretches across 11 time zones.
Ari Zakarian pointed to Dmitri Pevtsov, one of Russia’s top movie stars. He pointed to Igor Butman, one of the world’s best saxophone players, the Russian who often jammed with Bill Clinton. Zakarian pointed to the expensive seats near the ice, to a well-coiffed crowd wearing beautiful, expensive, white and red warm-ups with “RUSSIA” emblazoned on the back.
“Over there, there are people who are not millionaires. They are billionaires,” Zakarian said. “They are wealthy. They are all dressed up. They all support him. They all fly in with private jets.”
“Him” is Evgeni Plushenko, who tonight is expected to send Russians from the shores of the Black Sea to the frozen docks along the North Pacific Ocean into delirium with an Olympic gold medal. His 10-point lead over U.S. champion Johnny Weir is the figure skating equivalent of a four-touchdown lead entering the fourth quarter.
It will be the crowning achievement of a man who has become a cultural icon after rising from poverty in Siberia to brazenly challenge the reign of countryman Alexei Yagudin. Since Yagudin defeated Plushenko in a bitter fight for Olympic gold in 2002, Plushenko has taken over the mantle as the most popular man in Russia.
In a country that worships the arts, where figure skaters combine the music, grace and athleticism Russians adore, Plushenko has become his country’s Michael Jordan. His music is sometimes drowned out by screaming women. After exhibitions in Russia, he needs bodyguards to get him from ice rinks to getaway cars.
When a 19-year-old Russian woman learned Plushenko got married in June, she cried for three days. When he arrived at the Turin Games on Saturday, Plushenko was placed in a tiny apartment near the Palavela. The Russian Federation quickly put him up in a two-bedroom apartment, a virtual palace for the Olympic Village.
“This is the pride of the nation,” Zakarian said. “If you see all the other competitions, skiing and all other things, this is the event the whole nation of Russia is focused on.”
Plushenko, 23, is an idol to young and old alike. To the young, his long, wheat-blond hair and nose as sharp as the surrounding Dolomites, combined with a rhythm and artistry found in no other figure skater, give him the air of a hipper, younger Rod Stewart. Yet older people, those who recall the iron fist of communism, adore him because despite his youth, he is one of them. He has overcome true despair.
His parents worked for a railway in eastern Siberia north of Vladivostok. The temperature would drop to 40 below, and Evgeni spent his first two years living in a railcar. He developed a chronic cough and, not knowing if he could survive another Siberian winter, his parents moved west to Volgograd in Russia’s southwest corner.
To improve his condition, his mother enrolled him in skating and dance classes when he was 4, and he showed talent in both. He chose skating, but when he was 11, Volgograd’s lone rink closed. The family had no money to move to the rinks in Moscow or St. Petersburg. But his coach had a friend in St. Petersburg who would take care of him. The friend was Alexei Mishin, the famed coach and head of the renowned St. Petersburg Figure Skating Academy. He would not make it easy. Plushenko was placed in a communal apartment with nothing but a cot. He often would wake up next to drunks who stumbled in off the streets.
However, the kid was tough and driven. By age 12 he could do every triple jump, and he landed his first quad (four revolutions) when he was 14. He won the world junior title that year, and Mishin called him “the future of skating.”
“He has a way of moving and a charisma,” longtime U.S. coach Frank Carroll said. “When he steps on the ice, he has an aura about him that many people never achieve.”
Off it, too. Mishin remains his coach and protects him like a Tsarist-period oil painting. After he dragged Plushenko through the mixed zone without comment following Tuesday’s spectacular short program, Mishin stewed impatiently as Plushenko answered a couple brief questions at a mandatory news conference.
“There’s a lot of pressure right now,” Plushenko said. “Guys, come on. I just skated perfect. I skated clean. I did my job. I should skate also normally like I skated before. I should do my job.”
Then Mishin stood up, muttered something in Russian, and Evgeni Plushenko was gone.
Staff writer John Henderson can be reached at 303-820-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com.
