Withdraws Due To Injury

He has had a storied career and since his birth November 3/82 he was agile on his skates even at a young age and now he has to do what he thought would never happen.

Evgeni Plushenko was forced to call it quits and officially retire from competitive skating  due to injury and withdrew from the Men’s Singles event at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

It is reported that Plushenko who is only 31 sustained an injury during the practice skate just prior to his turn in the short program and reports are that he felt a pain and decided to officially call it quits.

He was forcing himself to skate like he knew he could, but the pain kept him from doing so and as he was the only athlete from the host nation it was a hard decision to make and prior to leaving the ice he acknowledged the fans with a huge wave before skating off the ice.

There is no report as to what the injury was or where the pain was felt, but obviously enough for him to bow out of the Olympics.

While his career comes to an end, there were plenty of high’s along the way with Championships and including two Olympic Gold Medals, one as a singles competitor in 2006 and one as part of the Russian team earlier in the current Games in addition he got two Silver Medal’s in singles in 2002 and 2010 respectably.

He continued to have success at the World Championship and European Championship levels dating back to the 1990s.

He won 10 total Gold Medals at two high-profile events, but skating takes it’s toll due to the constant pounding on his knees and the rest of his body and advancing was simply out of the question.

In June 2011 he (Plushenko) had undergone knee surgery due to a meniscus problem  and stated “he would be back on track within two weeks, but reports say his left knee continued bother him.

Following a short program with back problems at the 2013 European Championships after the short program he was forced to undergo surgery to replace a spinal disk with a synthetic one.

No doubt the Russian Figure Skating team will miss him given the fact he the country’s top men’s skater, but also a consistent skater most of his career.

He was the one that the Russian Figure Skating Association depended on and was a “go-to” skater every four years.

It is the belief of many that it will take quite some time to develop another skater such as Plushenko with his combination of not only success but his longevity in the sport.

He is the only Male Figure Skater in the modern history of the sport to have won four Olympic Medals – yes FOUR!!

He did so in four Olympics which are 2002 Salt Lake Winter Olympics, 2006 Turin Winter Olympics, 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, and 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.

With the history of Figure Skating, the early years (1920-1932) a skater named Gillis Grafstrom who was from Stockholm also won four medals.

In 1914, Grafstrom competed at the last World Championships before the First World War

Three were Gold (1920,1924, 1928) and one was Silver in 1932

Gillis along with Eddie Eagan are the only athletes to have won a Gold Medal in both the Summer and Winter Olympic Games, thus being the only person to have won an individual Gold Medal in both the Summer (1920) and Winter Olympics (1924, 1928)

It should be noted that Eagan to this day is the only one to have managed the feat skating in different disciplines of the sport.

Say what you want, he was a great skater and it’s fair to say in Russia Plushenko isn’t just anyone – he’s practically royalty!!!