Shocks in Sheffield

It's that time again folks, ISU European Championships time! This year it was held in Sheffield which isn't that far away from where I live (in the 'grim' North) and I had really hoped I could have gone. I was desperate to be there but unfortunately it was not to be. But of course I did catch as much as I could on  Eurosport. I started out with the pairs competition. Aliona Savchenko and Robin Solkowy and Alexander Smirnov and Yuko Kavaguti were missing in action due to an injury to Robin and appendix surgery for Alex. However it was still a  great competition. Maxim Trankov and his partner Tatiana finally got the recognition they deserve and after a couple of stellar performances deservingly claimed the gold medal. Vera Bazarova and Yuri Larionov took the silver despite  the misgivinngs of (your friend and mine) Nicky Slater about their costtumes; "Its like a practice outift!" And Ksenia Stolbova and Fedor Klimov made it a hat-trick and an all Russian podium. I was lucky enough thatt on the end of my paris coverage Eurosport had scheduled the highlights of the men's short programmes. And boy did I get a shock. Plushenko is back. YES. Plushenko is BACK. As I said at the time (rather loudly) Holy Crap. I didn't know he was due to be back. It was so  exciting. And boy did he knock it out of the park. His short program still had the old Plushenko crazy showmanship element but somehow it wasn't as frantic, it was more controlled but still mega dramatic. It's just always a pleasure to watch Evgeni, he's so expressive and always draws your eye. Artur Gachinski (coached by the same man as Evgeni) also pulled it out of the bag, fnding the consistency he lacked around Grand Prix time. Tomas Werner put in a solid performance, way better than I'd seen it at the grand prix. So it's all very well poised ahead of the long programme.