r/yagushenko

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According to reports by RIA Novosti, 13-year-old Alexander Plushenko, the son of two-time Olympic champion Evgeni Plushenko, will represent Azerbaijan in figure skating.

Sources cited by the agency say that the Executive Committee of the Russian Figure Skating Federation approved his release from the national federation. After receiving the necessary clearance from the International Skating Union, he will be eligible to compete internationally for Azerbaijan starting next season.

Alexander Plushenko, who previously competed at the first sports category level in Russia, has rarely participated in major national tournaments and is not included in the Russian national team candidate lists for figure skating.

Old statement by Evgeni Plushenko:

“Changing sporting citizenship is, of course, a personal decision for every athlete. But if I were them, I wouldn’t change my citizenship,” he said.

Here are the main points I got from machine translation. Please kindly correct me if any of this is wrong; I tried to compare two different machine translations, but I don’t speak Japanese myself.

- Short program is choreographed by Shae-Lynn Bourne. The music is similar in vibe to Shoma’s “Great Spirit,” and Rio thinks it will be a signature program for him.

- Rio confirms he will be keeping/reworking his Gladiator free skate. He’s thinking of incorporating a straight-line step sequence as an homage to Yagudin and classic skating.

- Exhibition program will be “Give Me Love,” which Joshua Farris once skated to and Rio has always wanted to skate to.

- Rio names past skaters that have influenced him: Yuzu, Yagudin, Plushenko, and Joshua Farris (!).

- Rio describes being surprised by the men’s event at the Milan Olympics and says maybe there really was a “demon” (魔物) at the Olympics 😭