Now, as for Plushenko's skate, anyone who has any knowledge of skating and watched that skate and thought he deserved the gold medal is simply being blinded by the quad. ONLY. Both triple axles were tilted in the air, sloppily landed and completely lacking in any interesting entries or exits out of the jumps. Look at Evan's jumps, or Takahashi's and you'll see they do a spiral, or a camel, a spread eagle, or a semi-ina bauer and after the jumps a flourish, a turn, or some kind of movement that Plushenko NEVER did, not once in his entire series of jumps. He rattled off the jumps - just jump-jump-jump but nothing interesting to connect or introduce them.
As for the rest of the skating: footwork sequences which didn't involve intricate steps but rather posing, blowing kisses to the crowd, or Nijinsky prancing but nothing of real difficulty - all showy and grand for show skating but not for a competition where difficulty of execution is prized. He was counting on charisma and flair to make up for a lack of real choreographic zest and intricate step sequences and interpretation of the music. I am SO glad that flash didn't dazzle the judges as to their real mission: to reward the skater who best presented his arsensal of jumps, spins, and choreographed footwork with the cleanest presentation and fewest mistakes.
As for that comment about Evan slowing down, that doesn't make sense to me at all. He skated to his music which actually sped up at the end, and he didn't miss a beat of the music in that step sequence.
