 |
| © RIA Novosti. Maxim Bogodvid |
Figure skating champion Evgeni Plushenko has made a formal complaint to police of slander following Eurosport commentator Andrei Zhurankov ’s claims that he faked surgery on a recent injury.
Plushenko withdrew from the 2013 European championships in Zagreb last month because of injury after finishing sixth in the short program, and his coach Alexei Mishin said the skater had a back disc replacement at a clinic in Israel.
Andrei Zhurankov said on air that Plushenko had faked the surgery for public relations purposes. Plushenko told R-Sport the commentator’s claim was an “insult” and vowed to “fight for my honor and dignity.” Zhurankov said he stood by his comments and did not consider them slanderous.
An unsourced report in the Israeli media claimed Plushenko was not being operated on and insisted Mishin was lying to cover up failure in Zagreb.
Plushenko’s wife Yana Rudkovskaya called the report “shameful” and posted photographs on twitter of Plushenko lying in a hospital bed.
Here a reportage from the ospital in Israel where Plushenko underwent his surgery. You can read a translation of the interview here.
Source: R-Sport
4 commenti:
Laura, what do you honestly think? I confess I really don't know where the truth lies...
Honestly, I don't want to offend Plushenko's reputation, a champion that has won so much, by thinking it would be capable of faking a surgery for the sake of... what? Pride? That would be an affront to our intelligence at the least.
On November, Brian Joubert withdrew from the Cup of China lamenting abdominal pain and fever. And what happened? Some people started to say that he was faking the flu and he really withdrew because he stood in seventh place following the men's short program.
Again on November, Johnny Weir withdrew from the Cup of Russia due to an old knee injury flaring up. He finished tenth after a performance to forget. Again people put the wihdrawal down to the placement.
I want to give enough credit to all these great skaters to think they wouldn't fake sickness, injury, not to mention surgery, out of pure pride. Incident happens in all sports, as well as assessing wrongly one's preparation or one's state of health.
Besides, fans wouldn't stop loving them beacause they're human and, as normal human beings, sometimes they can fail. And we shouldn't forget that at the 2012 Euros Plushenko was criticized because, after he started the quad controversy, he did not jump it in the SP. But he did jump it in the FP, despite his back injury, just to make a statement, for those calling him "too old to win".
video from Israeli hospital (with translation):
http://evgeni-plushenko.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=6&start=2090#p77645
details about Plushenko's surgery:
http://evgeni-plushenko.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=6&start=2090#p77574
.... Eurosport commentator uttered a bunch of nonsense. :/
Thank you for reading and for the link, glacierice. I did watch it when it was first published, than lost track of it. I'll add it to the post. And yeah, I agree with you. ;)
Post a Comment