FIGURE SKATING: Plushenko wins first World title

2001 World Championships March 18-25 Vancouver, Canada Men's Free Skate

Evgeny Plushenko was unbeatable all season long, and he is still unbeatable now. Taking the ice for his free skate, Plushenko was essentially guaranteed the gold medal, because of his placements in the qualifying round and short program. Nevertheless, Plushenko delivered like he never has at the World Championships to win his first World title at the age of 18.

Plushenko started off with his trademark quad toe – triple toe – double loop combination. While Plushenko did not attempt a second quadruple jump, he completed a gorgeous triple axel – triple toe, and every other triple in the book. By the time Plushenko finished his program, the audience was already on its feet. They knew Plushenko was World Champion, and Plushenko knew as well. He was ecstatic and exuberant, blowing kisses to the audience. While Plushenko earned no 6.0s for either technical merit or artistic presentation, it didn’t matter, because he was the undisputed World Champion.

Alexei Yagudin’s performance was commendable, continuing his come back from his disastrous qualifying round to take the silver medal. After numerous pain-killing injections to numb his foot, Yagudin skated extremely well in the short program, but whether or not his foot would hold up during the much longer free skate was the main concern. Yagudin landed his quad toe – triple toe combination, triple lutz, triple axel – triple toe (touching down on the triple toe), triple axel, triple loop, and triple salchow. However, he seemed fatigued and did not have his usual explosive power. Still an excellent skate considering that he couldn’t feel part of his foot, and a truly heroic comeback for Yagudin, who has reigned as World Champion for the past three years.

Claiming the bronze medal was Todd Eldredge. Eldredge tripled his quad toe attempt, but landed all of his other jumps, including a triple axel – triple toe. Although Eldredge’s program was clean, without a quad in his arsenal, he was unable to beat Yagudin in the free skate and finished an honorable third. Not bad after a one year absence from eligible competition!

Timothy Goebel had a pretty good free skate, landing his quad salchow – triple toe combination, but falling on his quad toe attempt. Goebel did complete his second quad salchow and two triple axels, but it was not enough to move ahead of Eldredge. Goebel improved greatly on his eleventh place finish last year, though, to finish fourth this year.

Elvis Stojko was unable to move up with a shaky free skate. Falling on his first quad and touching his foot down on his second, Stojko also doubled both of his planned triple axels, stepped out of his triple salchow, and touched down on the triple lutz. Stojko explained that his earlier injuries were not bothering him; rather, he simply needed more training time.

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