If A Plushenko Falls Back Into Olympic Training, Does Anyone Care?

So he’s baaack. Maybe.

At least one article has run over the past couple weeks reporting that 2006 Olympic and three-time World Champion Evgeny Plushenko has announced his “comeback to figure skating” with, of course, a Vancouver Olympics goal in mind.

And if it sounds like you’ve heard this one before, it’s because you have:

After seeing the poor results of Russian skaters in the 2007 World Figure Skating Championships (which was the worst since 1960), Plushenko was worried about Russia losing its status as a dominant force in figure skating, and was also concerned that Russia might even lose spots for its skaters in the 2010 Winter Olympics. He announced in April 2007 that he has decided to return to competitive skating for the 2007-2008 season, to keep Russia at a competitive level with other countries until the next generation of Russian skaters can take over.

But he didn’t come back.

Is it different this time? Or is everyone too wary, and/or too worried about the state of skating in general, to jump up and down at the prospect of another former superstar pondering a return?

Maybe we should simply look at the calendar to determine our excitement level:

JAN-APR: The speculations run rampant, and every news outlet is there to capture them.

MAY-AUG: The training time kicks in, but the news outlets aren’t thinking as much about skating and nobody’s really sure who’s in or who’s out. (A caveat to this would be if Sasha Cohen really makes her big announcement in June/July as she’s been hinting.)

SEPT-DEC: For every two people that DO commit to Vancouver, one will succumb to injury brought on by the escalated training schedule.

Just a thought…

But in case the idea of Plushenko’s return already brings joy to your heart, here’s his Olympic-winning LP as the Clip of the Day.