Plushenko Digs Own Grave At Winter Olympics

By Alex Newman and Kimberly Wynn

During the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada, Russian figure skater Evgeni Plushenko was portrayed as a villainous opponent to American skater Evan Lysacek. After being defeated by Lysacek and receiving the silver medal, Plushenko went into the downward spiral of a tantrum throwing child, using the media as his primary mouthpiece.

It all began at the medal ceremony when Plushenko stepped onto the wrong podium.

After “accidentally” stepping on the gold medal platform, Plushenko said in an interview with Russia Today that he had forgotten he’d come in second.

“To be fair, I honestly believed that I had stepped onto my position,” Plushenko said. “…in my brain, I had actually won.”

Even if this was an honest mistake, by a veteran Olympic figure skater, mind you, his poor judgment following the fumble was what ignited the most criticism and disgust in the media. Plushenko openly disrespected American spectators, Lysacek himself, and questioned the credibility of the Olympics’ judges all in one breath.

Rather than sparking any sympathy for his silver-medal-winning performance, the general atmosphere in Vancouver was apathetic at best.

“From what I saw and heard, Plushenko was being a baby about it [winning silver],” said Jeny McCray, a University of Washington Tacoma senior. McCray assisted with NBC’s coverage of curling in Vancouver under the supervision of the Emmy-winning UW Tacoma professor Bill Kunz. “The sentiment was that he was being a sore loser, that it wasn’t possible to win gold without performing the quad.”

In Plushenko’s defense, NBC’s coverage of him at the Olympics was not the most flattering. NBC included an offensive mini-profile feature before he hit the ice to perform. The feature recreated the stereotypical Cold War Russian enemy.

Dr. David Coon, a communication professor at UW Tacoma and scholar of television studies, viewed NBC’s feature to offer his analysis.

“Whether he's [Plushenko] training, driving, or just thinking, he is frequently alone,” Coon said. “There are a number of shots of his home country, and the images usually look bleak, cold, and not particularly inviting. And Russia becomes enemy territory.”

The uninviting depiction of Russia is common among westernized media. Americans are used to absorbing information through biased media outlets, like NBC, which consistently feeds their audience misconstrued and hyperbolized accounts of information, in order to increase its entertainment factor and generate a profit.

“[In NBC’s feature] he says, ‘many people don't like me’ and notes that his enemies are afraid of him,” Coon said. “So, this piece suggests that he is alone because he is disliked. The darker music of this piece, led by cellos, string basses, and low brass, supports the image of a foreigner to be feared or hated.”

During the 2006 Winter Olympics, NBC’s coverage of Plushenko was surprisingly favorable.

“No American men were considered favorites in 2006,” Coon said. “Perhaps NBC saw Plushenko as almost an inevitable winner, and figured that they may as well give American viewers a reason to root for him. Now in 2010, when Americans clearly had Evan Lysacek to root for, NBC helped to give them someone to root against.”

On both ends there was the tendency to exaggerate to gain attention. But neither portrayal, from either Plushenko or NBC, was accurate. In the previously mentioned interview, Plushenko blatantly said that the media was against him, it was a biased factor in his loss, used to ignite American support for figure skating through Lysacek’s victory.

But in his tirade, the athlete fails to take into account that NBC didn't affect the competition itself. Nevertheless, there is enough evidence to suggest that mainstream networks did, in fact, set him up for failure by intentionally framing him as the enemy. It makes one wonder if, even without his childishness, any protests that he made afterwards would automatically lose their credibility with the public simply because of this framing.

“Before [in 2006], he was the golden child,” McCray said. “They [the media] can choose to highlight any part of an interview. They can pick and choose what will make people look a certain way.”

An outlet can even go so far as to villainize or humanize an individual or their country, just as long as it draws viewers. Regardless of Plushenko’s juvenile response to loss, his identity had long ago been twisted to be merely an infamous character in the Olympic drama, pre-selected for the role.

If only he hadn’t filled it so well.