Elvis Stojko is the Spoonful of Urine on Evan Lysacek's Cornflakes
Last night Evan Lysacek broke a 22-year drought dating back to the Brian Boitano administration by winning a gold medal in men's figure skating for Team USA. This was followed by much celebration and spilling of wine and tears.
Not Elvis Stojko, however. He was unfazed, or at least he gained enough composure to blast the whole damn system, taking Lysacek down with it. The two-time silver medalist wrote in his column on The Exclamation Point: "[T]he judges’ scoring probably killed figure skating because kids now are going to see this and say, 'Oh, I don’t need a quad. I can just do great footwork for presentation marks and do a couple of nice spins and make it to Olympic champion.' With that type of scoring, you don’t have to risk it. You can play it safe and win gold."
Not to be outdone, silver medalists Yevgeny Plushenko echoed those thoughts to his Russian homeland reporter brethren: "You can't be considered a true men's champion without a quad."
After seeing both free skate programs I was damn sure Plushenko would win decisively, and this is simply one reason I'm not a figure skating expert. It looks like Lysacek gamed the system and saw how to rack up points without spinning four times in the air. And the dissenting consensus is saying, "don't hate the player, hate the game." That's all that can be said.
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