Heck Of A Guy

DrHGuy is not a figure skating aficionado. With the possible exception, in fact, of those few days every four years that are supersaturated with the Winter Olympics telecasts, he is far more likely to be thinking of truck tandem axles, Axl Foley, or even Axl Rose than those axels performed over frozen water.

Nonetheless, the publication two days ago of the rare Heck Of A Guy non-basketball sports post, The Best Of Baseball, and one of the sentences it contained, “As it turns out, pretending to be sleazy and perverse and having sex isn’t a bad way to spend ones birthday,” set off a chain of memory traces that finally led to the recall of one specific Men’s Figure Skating Performance that is altogether worthy of a Saturday blog entry.

The Preliminary Round: Compulsory Figures

The performer is Evgeni Plushenko, a 25 year old Russian figure skater, who is the seven-time National Champion, five-time European Champion, three-time World Champion, 2006 Winter Olympics gold medalist, and four-time Grand Prix Final gold medalist. By consensus of other skaters, experts, and fans, he is, by a significant margin, the best active male figure skater. He has a long list of technical achievements and other accomplishments that can be reviewed at Wikipedia: Evgeni Plushenko .

The man clearly has game.

Still, in the eyes of DrHGuy, the best competitor in Men’s Figure Skating suffers under the significant limitation of – well, of figure skating. Now, if he could execute a lightening speed crossover dribble followed by a spin move toward the basket and a double pump 360 dunk - on skates - maybe then … . [Oops, sorry. This is about figure skating. That will be this post’s last basketball-ward digression. DrHGuy will herewith focus on figure skating, figure skating, figure skating, figure skating, figure skating, figure skating, figure skating. Figure skating.]

The point is (or, at least, the point three paragraphs ago was) that this performance has won a Heck Of A Guy Entertainment In Sports Award precisely because it makes ice skating entertaining. Admittedly, those readers who find figure skating itself an exposition of grace, beauty, and excitement may find this criterion annoying or even insulting. To both of you, I apologize.

You Can Leave Your Skates On

The routine features Plushenko performing a Disney On Ice version of a striptease.¹

The music is “Sex bomb” by Tom Jones and Mousse T. The occasion is the 2005 Winter Skating Championships in Lyon, France.

The Scoring

DrHGuy, unburdened by an appreciation of or knowledge about either figure skating or striptease,² is convinced that Plushenko’s striptease is a clever and funny piece of entertainment that is, as a bonus, a tad sexually provocative for certain audience members. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

There are clues that lead to and support this interpretation of the event. The skater’s fake pectorals and the gold lame G-string, for example, come to mind. The histrionic flair and exaggerated posing are likewise overt cues to the intent of the routine.

DrHGuy, in fact, finds other conclusions about the performance difficult to imagine. Yet, this has been labeled the “strangest skating performance ever,” the “most daring skating routine I have ever seen,” disrespectful, inappropriate, and much, much worse.³

These criticisms, keep in mind, are made in the context of figure skating, a sport in which, it seems to DrHGuy, sexuality has, on occasion, been exploited, flamboyant movements have been choreographed, and provocative gestures and costumes have been rumored to play a role.

The video is available at Media: Better Than A Triple Axel

To maximize enjoyment of the video, the viewer is advised to compare the enthusiastic, good-natured response of the audience to the embarrassed, wonderfully uncomfortable, faltering dialog of the announcers.

Footnotes

1. Theoretically, a “Spoiler Alert” should have been placed before the graphic, offering the reader the option of preserving the mystery of the event until the viewing of the performance. DrHGuy, however, has never heard anyone exclaim, “Dude, why did you tell me there will be strippers at the party? You ruined the surprise. There’s no use even showing up now. I’m going home to watch wrestling.”↩
2. DrHGuy is a big fan of naked, however, and is definitely willing to give striptease the chance to earn his respect.↩
3. It has also been blamed for the “sex-addict routine” of John Heder’s character in Blades of Glory.↩

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