Elvis Stojko - "Plushenko Wuz Robbed"

Elvis Stojko, twice Olympic silver medalist for Canada, the country just to the north of the United States, called last night "The night they killed figure skating."  Evan Lysacek of the United States, defeated Evgeni Plushenko of Russia, the country just to the left of the United States, for the gold medal.  In Stojko's opinion, "Lysacek skated slow and his jumps weren’t close to the technical ability of defending Olympic champion Evgeni Plushenko."  He favorably compared the athletic performance of Plushenko to the very pretty performance of Lysacek, concluding, "Figure skating gets no respect because of outcomes like this. More feathers, head-flinging and so-called step sequences done at walking speed – that’s what the system wants.

"I am going to watch hockey, where athletes are allowed to push the envelope. A real sport."

I must, however, disagree with Stojko.  Even though putting on skates causes me to fall over, I do have eyes and the right to disagree with any individual from Canada, a cold, barren place where people, when sober, entertain themselves by clubbing seals and pushing stones across the ice while they run in front of them, sweeping madly.  It is a country that is not number one on the vacation lists of most people not residing in psychiatric hospitals.  Even so, I must disagree with Mr. Stojko's wrong opinion. 

We in America appreciate beauty and find that beauty and athletics are not mutually exclusive.  For instance, we find part of baseball's charm lying in each very long break between frenetic episodes of action, when players have time to meditatively scratch their steroid-shrunken testicles while waiting for the next bout of activity.  We also love the tight-fitting football uniforms that maximize the definition and seductive sinewiness of each player's gluteus maximus.  Athleticism and aesthetics are both parts of the foundation of our sporting edifice. 

Therefore, we are more apt to produce a beautiful skater like Evan Lysacek than we are to produce a wildly spinning Plushenko, who agrees with Stojko's opinion and has said that a male skater should not be able to win the gold medal without being able to perform a quad jump.  Men's figure skating is not a jumping competition.  It should continue to be decided by judges who pretty much have their minds made up before the competition begins, depending on such important factors as politics, popularity, and how much they are paid.

Classy guy that Plushenko is, he declined to complain any more when we asked him to, and he walked off into the Vancouver night to enjoy the fun activities that Canada offers.  Watch out seals!