Weir Should Have Silver on His Mind

Entering tonight’s free skate, Johnny Weir, for the last three years the U.S. champion, stands a strong chance of winning silver behind Russian Evgeni Plushenko, who all but sewed up the gold with a technically brilliant short program Tuesday.

Weir, 21, of Newark, Del., second after the short program, a skater with uncommon artistry and lyricism, is also a flamboyant soul, candid and outgoing, seemingly unafraid to speak his mind or wear his emotions on his sleeves. Which, when he skates, are typically covered in lace, mesh and rhinestones. On his right hand, in the short program, he wore a red glove that he calls Camille.

Since he has gotten here, Weir has said that he is “very princessy” about his travel accommodations. He prepared for Tuesday’s short program by sleeping for five hours, eating two blood oranges, doing his hair and putting on “my fake face.”

His room at the Olympic village? So “dirty” he feels compelled to keep mopping the floor himself.

On the key skating-related issue, whether to attempt a quadruple jump in the long program, a huge risk but one that could provide valuable points, he said, “I’ll decide on Thursday morning. It’s very last-minute, spur-of-the-moment for me. It’s going to have to be perfect for me to want to put it in. I could very well wake up and feel horrible, like Nick Nolte’s mug shot.”

Asked again Wednesday about the quad, Weir said, “It’s been going really well, so I don’t see why I won’t try it. But there’s still one more practice before the event, so we’ll see how that goes there. Today I landed three out of four in practice. The one I didn’t land, I two-footed.”

Neither Weir nor the two other Americans, Matt Savoie and Evan Lysacek, attempted a quad in the short program. Savoie is eighth heading into the free skate. Lysacek, who trains in El Segundo, stands 10th.

Plushenko executed a quadruple toe-loop in his short program, finishing with 90.66 points, a record under the judging system now in place after the scandal that racked the 2002 Games.

Weir got 80 points.

Stephane Lambiel of Switzerland, bidding to become the first Swiss to medal in figure skating since Hans Gerschwiler won silver in 1948 in St. Moritz, stands third, with 79.77. “I’m going to fight,” Lambiel said.

Plushenko, the silver medalist at Salt Lake City, three times a world champion, acknowledged that he would have to blunder spectacularly to lose.

Anything is possible, especially in figure skating. But more likely, Plushenko will be skating for his place in the pantheon of Olympic champions.

As he put it in a brief news conference late Tuesday, “If I will do my best, so I can win, for sure. Thank you.”