The thing about Yagudin is they always snipe at each other, so it was a veiled insult. I don't hold it against him, though; that's just how Yagudin is.
Okay, I am going to draw a personal analogy here. I have a really bad ankle. I fucked it up as a kid. It always hurts a little, but I've walked some pretty long distances in San Francisco and toughed it out. Last weekend, I agreed to go to S.F. again with someone, but at the ATM before we were scheduled to leave, I slipped and fell and re-aggravated it. It swelled up and it was excruciating to walk. It was the same injury, yes, but what was tolerable before that fall became intolerable. Should I have not agreed to go to S.F. because it was conceivable that I would hurt it worse? Yes, I know it's not the Olympics, and someone else wasn't dying to go to S.F. instead of me, but... Most figure skaters have long-standing injuries of some kind, that hurt them all the time. They power through them. And then sometimes they fall or pop out or twist their bodies in such a way that they make old injuries hurt again. Until that moment, competing through the pain IS possible. Then something goes wrong and it becomes impossible. He had a great showing at the team event. Individual gold medal worthy? No. But his team event scores would have netted him a bronze individual if he'd reproduced it. He felt good. Then something went wrong. It sucks, but when you skate two clean programs, or walk 5 miles in S.F., you have every reason to believe that you can do it again. There's no reason to think it's all going to go wrong. If I'd canceled on my friend BEFORE I hurt my ankle again, because I might hurt it later, it would have been unclassy/dishonest. Same goes for Plushenko dropping out when he felt good. He took a risk, and it was 50% successful. I believe that that's more successful than Kovtun would have been, so I'm grateful that he tried and tried until the end.
I will say that the Russian FANS don't think ANY of this. This is purely media drama. The people on the street in Russia still love him. He is the most beloved athlete in Russia. That won't change, no matter what the papers say.
Okay, I am going to draw a personal analogy here. I have a really bad ankle. I fucked it up as a kid. It always hurts a little, but I've walked some pretty long distances in San Francisco and toughed it out. Last weekend, I agreed to go to S.F. again with someone, but at the ATM before we were scheduled to leave, I slipped and fell and re-aggravated it. It swelled up and it was excruciating to walk. It was the same injury, yes, but what was tolerable before that fall became intolerable. Should I have not agreed to go to S.F. because it was conceivable that I would hurt it worse? Yes, I know it's not the Olympics, and someone else wasn't dying to go to S.F. instead of me, but... Most figure skaters have long-standing injuries of some kind, that hurt them all the time. They power through them. And then sometimes they fall or pop out or twist their bodies in such a way that they make old injuries hurt again. Until that moment, competing through the pain IS possible. Then something goes wrong and it becomes impossible. He had a great showing at the team event. Individual gold medal worthy? No. But his team event scores would have netted him a bronze individual if he'd reproduced it. He felt good. Then something went wrong. It sucks, but when you skate two clean programs, or walk 5 miles in S.F., you have every reason to believe that you can do it again. There's no reason to think it's all going to go wrong. If I'd canceled on my friend BEFORE I hurt my ankle again, because I might hurt it later, it would have been unclassy/dishonest. Same goes for Plushenko dropping out when he felt good. He took a risk, and it was 50% successful. I believe that that's more successful than Kovtun would have been, so I'm grateful that he tried and tried until the end.
I will say that the Russian FANS don't think ANY of this. This is purely media drama. The people on the street in Russia still love him. He is the most beloved athlete in Russia. That won't change, no matter what the papers say.
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