Skating's Biggest Douchebag Arrives in Sochi

[joeybee12]

SOCHI: Olympic favourite Patrick Chan said on Tuesday he was relishing renewing his rivalry with Russian superstar Yevgeny Plushenko as the Canadian found his feet on the ice of Sochi.

Three-time world champion Chan arrived last Friday and has had the ice of the Iceberg Skating Palace to himself as he fine-tunes his bid for Canada's first men's Olympic figure skating gold.

Plushenko, who only got the nod to join the Russian team two weeks ago, arrived in Sochi on Tuesday as the 2006 Olympic champion, aged 31, bids for a medal at a fourth consecutive Games.

"Plushenko's the talk of the town and it's exciting and drama-filled," said 23-year-old Chan of his rival who was picked to compete despite not being the national champion.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/sport/olympics-chan-takes-to/979148.html

For those of you who are figure-skating impaired, the d-bag is Plushenko, not Chan.

[DinahMoeHum]

1. Plushenko: A Noun, A Verb and The Quad.

Guy's got the charisma of a dump truck.

Hope he crashes big time.

[joeybee12]

2. The crowd will really be behind him and will riot if he gets low scores...

[TexasTowelie]

3. But if he skates cleanly and earns the respect of the judges,

then we can look forward to the encore exhibition performance of

[joeybee12]

4. Not if there's a God! nt

[TexasTowelie]

5. Spoiler: Don't click this thread unless you want to know better.

He just skated extremely well in the short program in the team event.

[joeybee12]

6. I won't be watching any of it...bad enough all the homophobia...

Now the mass slaughter of dogs there...fuck the whole thing.

[TBF]

8. Amen.

But check out @SochiProblems on Twitter - so funny.

[TexasTowelie]

14. It looks like your wish has been granted.

Plushenko pulled out with a back injury after the warm-up and retired!

[DinahMoeHum]

15. Happy Valentine's Day and another helping of Schadenfreude. . .

. . .There's a B-I-G flapdoodle within the Russian sports delegation over "Zhenya"'s selection to the team, to the exclusion of a younger up-and-coming skater, 18-year-old Maxim Kovtun:

Enjoy!
http://espn.go.com/olympics/winter/2014/figureskating/story/_/id/10454840/2014-sochi-olympics-evgeni-plushenko-withdrawal-draws-russian-backlash

[PotatoChip]

7. Jason Brown figure skater- I'm really rooting for this young man!

I know next to nothing about him other than this performance. And even in this instance, I just happened upon it while flipping channels when it happened live... About a month or two ago.

I suppose I could google, but in a way I think it'll be more interesting if I don't. He just seems so humble, and thankful for the crowd's applause. I like that!

I admit that I am a sucker for Celtic tunes, but that was only part of it. I also liked how the announcers seemed to start out w/little expectations and the crowd seemed to be only mildly paying attention. Until, wow!

I hope he does as well in Sochi!

[ScreamingMeemie]

9. He should have skated both programs

In the team event. USA would be better off right now. Jeremy choked.

Also, would you believe that performance was only a little over 3 weeks ago?

[DinahMoeHum]

10. Yay! He WILL be doing the men's free skate today.

Abbott is out.

http://espn.go.com/olympics/winter/2014/figureskating/story/_/id/10426452/2014-sochi-olympics-patrick-chan-jeremy-abbott-men-free-skate-team-event

[PotatoChip]

11. Ok, this may a dumb question, but

would Jason Brown not have been able to skate had Abbot done ok?

I'm kind of embarrassed to admit this, but I'm not at all up on how Olympic rules work. All I knew was that Jason Brown was going to Sochi.

Beyond that however, I'm clueless when it comes to this sort of thing.

[DinahMoeHum]

12. Dunno. I still think Brown would've have skated today, no matter what.

This team competition thing is in the finals (ie. medals) phase right now, and I'm sure that Brown would still have been the choice for the men's singles phase final, given Abbott's track record in international competitions over the years (in a word: putrid)

Yeah, it's a cliche, but in these sort of competitions "you only get one chance to dance".

[ScreamingMeemie]

13. The team skate is new. If Abbot had done okay, he might have skated today.

The team captain for the US (Charlie White) has the option to make two changes after the short program. He switched out Abbot with Brown.