It’s Plushenko’s to Lose, Weir Says

U.S. figure skater Johnny Weir is either cagey or he’s conceding the Olympic title before the men’s competition even begins Tuesday.

After Weir won his third consecutive U.S. men’s figure skating title last month in St. Louis, he declared Russia’s Evgeni Plushenko the clear favorite to win gold here.

He said Tuesday at a figure-skating news conference that he hadn’t changed his mind and, if anything, was more emphatic after having seen a video of a flu-ridden Plushenko winning the European men’s championship.

“It is his gold medal to lose, still,” Weir said. “I saw him skate at Europeans. He was incredible, and he literally had an IV the day before and was still able to do a nearly perfect free program with a quad toe.”

Since little is what it appears to be in figure skating, Weir might have been trying a psychological ploy to ease the pressure on himself and deflect it to Plushenko, a three-time world champion and the 2002 Salt Lake City silver medalist. Or, he simply might have been speaking the truth.

“He’s just being realistic. That’s how he honestly feels,” said Priscilla Hill, Weir’s coach. “I do feel, and I agree with him, that the person who has the most pressure on him is Plushenko. And it’s a hard position for him to be in.”

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U.S. runner-up Evan Lysacek, who trains in El Segundo, acknowledged that he’s had a tough season because he changed his long program to better fit the demands of the new judging system. He also had to prove that his bronze medal at last year’s world championships wasn’t a fluke.

“It was difficult to learn how to succeed at an international level last year,” he said. “But this year, even bigger than that, was learning how to succeed under pressure, and there were a lot of expectations on me after winning a world medal. Qualifying for the Grand Prix Final this year was a huge accomplishment, because that proved that, yes, I can, compete at this level.”

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Frank Carroll hasn’t coached Michelle Kwan since 2001, yet he can’t seem to escape questions about her.

He said they still had warm feelings for one another but that he still didn’t understand why she stopped working with him after nearly a decade’s collaboration.

“It’s never been discussed,” he said. “That door was closed. Maybe 10 years down the road, when she’s had her first or second child.”

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The German Olympic committee said it would go to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to appeal a German court’s order that it reinstate Coach Ingo Steuer to the nation’s figure skating team. The committee had excluded Steuer, the coach of European pair silver medalists Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy, because Steuer had been accused of having ties to the East German secret police.

Steuer, who teamed with Mandy Woetzel to win at the 1997 world championships and a bronze medal at the 1998 Nagano Games, has admitted having contact with the police force but denied wrongdoing.