Yevgeny Viktorovich Plyushchenko, born in November 3, 1982, in Solnechny, Khabarovsk Krai, Soviet Union (Russia). is a Russian figure-skater, the seven-time National Champion. five-time European Champion, three-time World Champion. 2006 Winter Olympics gold medalist. and four-time Grand
Prix Final gold medalist. Evgeni Plyushchenko started skating at the age of four. When he was eleven years old, his ice rink in Volgograd closed. He was then sent to St. Petersburg to train under the tutelage of Alexei Mishin. Plyushchenko made quick progress on the international scene under Mishin's tutelage. As a 14-year-old, he won the 1997 World Junior Figure Skating Championships. The following year, at 15, he finished third at the senior World Figure Skating Championships. At the time, Mishin was also coaching another rising teenage star, Alexei Yagudin, who won the World Championships in 1998, and Yagudin and Plyushchenko developed a fierce rivalry. Yagudin finally decided to leave Mishin and eventually was coached by Tatiana Tarasova, but the rivalry between the two skaters continued throughout the years as they repeatedly battled it out for major titles. At the 2002 Winter Olympics, Plyushchenko and Yagudin were considered co-favorites. Yagudin skated a flawless short program to a standing ovation and finished the night in 1st place. Plyushchenko, however, botched his quad-triple combination and finished 4th in the short program. He skated a strong free skate to "Carmen" and pulled up to finish in 2nd place overall; Yagudin received the highest free skate marks under the 6.0 system in the history of Olympic competition and won the gold medal easily. After Yagudin's retirement, Plyushchenko won most of competitions he entered in the following four years. He finished second only twice. The first time was to Emanuel Sandhu at the 2003 Grand Prix Final. The second was the 2004 European Figure Skating Championships, where he lost to Brian Joubert. In Winter Olympics (2006) in Turin, Italy, Plyushchenko finished the short program ten points ahead of his closest rival, setting a new ISU record for the short program. His free skate was just as strong, and also set a new ISU record. Plyushchenko's free skating music was especially arranged
for him by violinist Edvin Marton. Plyushchenko took a break from competitive skating following the 2006 Olympic season. Mter seeing the poor results of Russian skaters in the 2007 World Figure Skating Championships (which was the worst since 1960), Plyushchenko was worried about Russia losing its status as a dominant force in figure skating and announced in April of 2007 that he has decided to return to competitive skating for the 2007-2008 season, to keep Russia at a competitive level with other countries until the next generation of Russian skaters can take over. Plyushchenko has since delayed his return until the 2008-2009 season. Plyushchenko's technical achievements are numerous. He is one of the few male skaters to perform the Biellmann spin. Plyushchenko is also one of few figure skaters to have landed quadruple loops and quadruple lutzes in practice, but has never completed either of them in competition. At the age of 16, Plyushchenko was the youngest male skater to ever receive a perfect score of 6.0. He received a total of seventy five 6.0s before the new Code of Points
judging system was introduced.
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