As continuation on my earlier post, here's Finnish YLE TV2's comments on yesterday's short program.
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Before the competition, they interviewed Plushenko (same questions as all other media, so there's no point to translate it)
They introduced Plushenko in this way:
One of the most interesting competitors is the Olympic winner Evgeni Plushenko, who had an exemption to compete at Europeans,
though he hasn't got required scores from international competitions due to the fact that he hasn't competed nearly for two years.
Plushenko returned to competitions in december by winning the Russian Nationals.
Olympic winner, three-times World Champion and six-times European Champion Evgeni Plushenko has had several year-offs during his career,
but he has returned always to the top of the sport, almost as for an irritation to the other competitors.
Plushenko hasn't compete in major competitions since Vancouver Olympics. These Europeans are for him just one step for his goal to compete at Sochi Olympics.
At Vancouver Plushenko got bitterly silver-medal, and now he is to aim victory at Sochi, for the fourt olympic-medal on his skating career.
They commented his skating in this way:
* It seems that Plushenko plays it safe by doing a combination of 3-3, and by saving a quad for his free program.
* His first slide on ice already shows that the master isn't rusty at all, but just the opposite indeed.
* 3-axel is fine.
* All three jump elements he skated grandly and with confident.
* Especially the jumps were beautiful today, although the spins weren't at the same level with his jumps.
* One might say that the lord has become to the house.
* Not quite the same Plushenko, which we have see by over the years, but his tactics was splendid and he made a wise decision,
because he knows that he still has knee surgery coming.
* In his SP everything was just right how it should be. Very pedant performance, in which he showed his expression.
* His absolute skating technique is impressive. He didn't hesitate at any point, just simply did what he can and skated convincingly.
With this performance he has to get good scores.
* Excellently strong performance and he is obviously ready to fight for the Championship. Especially his convidence is dazzling.
* The way he shows the mental strength and dynamic performance is admirable, and it's just what his charisma is about.
* It will be tough for his young challengers to beat him at these competitions.
***
Forgive me my english, it's quite difficult to tranlste someone else's words from my language, which is completely different compared to any other language
(except Estonian language). :ups:
edit: I fixed few misspellings.