As a former skater, I feel that the right man won last night. If it were "figure jumping" then Plushenko would have won. It is "figure skating" and the new scoring system takes all the moves in to account when the scoring is done. In the past, under the old system if you out jumped your competition you generally won. Under the new system ( which, by the way is FAR from perfect) the footwork sequences and spins are now looked with more scrutiny.
Plushenko's jumps WERE harder than Evan's, but if you look closely at the landings and the "run out" following each jump, Evan's were done cleaner and with more finesse. Plushenko does a lot of standing around, preening, and blowing kisses to the judges....almost 20 seconds worth if you time it all. In those 20 seconds Evan was SKATING and doing footwork.
If you look at arm movements, Plushenko flaps his arms a lot...which makes you look at his arms and not his feet during footwork sequences. Evan's arms were less distracting which makes his feet look better.
Evan's spins were much more centered than Plushenko's and he seemed to spin faster, all of which is now taken into consideration.
Although figures are no longer done in competition, the skaters who are moving up in the ranks now do something called "moves in the field" which combine footwork elements and pieces of the former figures. These were implemented to get up and coming skaters to focus more on footwork. Many of the footwork sequences used by the skaters incorporate these moves.
Now, the new scoring system is flawed in that it DOES put too much emphasis on packing a program full of stuff to get points. In a way the system designed to bring more artistry that can be measured and scored has taken it away. But, a well choreographed and constructed program like the ones we saw last night, that put emphasis on both the high scoring jumps the beautiful footwork and spins is beautiful to watch.
There has been much criticism of Evan not attempting a quad. A well done triple-triple combination scores more points than a poorly attempted and possibly not landed quad. If there is gold on the line, I just might play it on the safer side and go for what I know I can do well rather than risk not getting any points at all.
All in all, it was an amazing competition. Now on to Ice Dancing!!!
Linda
When we adopted DD in 2000, her Russian passport said CCCP and we asked (in a polite way) WTH? We were told they still had Soviet passports left over and being practical people, were not going to destroy them just because they were now Russia and not the Soviet Union any longer. Too much money wasted. 
I think it took a few more years for her region to use them all and change over to ones that said Russia.
DH would be totally on board for that! He is soooo NOT a fan of figure skating. He thinks they should do away with all the "frou-frou" stuff...just give them a certain amount of time on the ice and let them see who can do the best/most jumps.
