Evgeni Plushenko wins short program at Rostelecom Cup to get comeback off to strong start

Plushenko leads after Rostelecom short program

MOSCOW — Evgeni Plushenko began his comeback attempt with characteristic skill and boldness at the Rostelecom Cup, landing a clean quad-triple combination Friday.

But a few second later, Plushenko showed that he’s still short of the discipline that made him the Olympic champion, losing focus and doubling a planned triple lutz.

“I got a little relaxed, I felt like I had done everything” after the opening jumps, Plushenko admitted.

The lapse hardly mattered. Plushenko won the short program, finishing well ahead of his challengers in his first international competition since winning the gold medal at the Turin Olympics.

Japan’s Takahiko Kozuka was in second with 75.50 points, almost seven behind Plushenko, after a speedy, stylish and loud program to the feedback-drenched guitar music of Jimi Hendrix. Kozuka didn’t try a quad, but his landings were as precise as Plushenko’s and the calculated audacity of his music choice underlined how the once-punky Plushenko has become, at 26, almost a sedate elder.

“Somebody had asked me why I was coming back because I already had everything. I have money, I am famous … maybe I keep wanting to think I am very young,” Plushenko said.

After finishing second at the Salt Lake City Games, Plushenko dominated figure skating for the next four years. He won two more world titles — he has three total — and claimed the top spot at every competition he entered in the 2004-05 and 2005-06 seasons.

With no more titles left to win after taking the gold in Turin, Plushenko stepped away from skating. He decided last year to return — not deterred by the fact no Olympic champion has ever repeated.

American Johnny Weir was in third after struggling through his opening jumps, doubling the second half of a planned triple-triple combination and putting a hand down on his triple axel.

“I’m disappointed … but I can overcome these barriers,” said Weir, who skated in what was, for him, a conservative outfit: black, with a plunging neckline and hot pink stitching.

Compatriot Brandon Mroz was the only other entrant aiming for a quad, but he fell and the rest of his mambo-themed program frayed, leaving him in last place.

American champions Meryl Davis and Charlie White took a strong five-point lead in ice dancing after the compulsory dance, followed by Anna Cappellini and Luca Lanotte of Italy and Russia’s Ekaterina Rubleva and Ivan Shefer. The couples return to the ice later Friday for the original dance.

The Rostelecom Cup, previously known as Cup of Russia, is the second of six events in the International Skating Union’s Grand Prix series.