U.S. figure skating gold medalist Evan Lysacek appeared on Larry King Live tonight, medal in tow, and King made sure to bring up the recent comments from Russian silver medalist Evgeni Plushenko, who has insisted he was robbed of the gold after landing a quadruple jump which Lysacek did not attempt. Plushenko even went so far as to design and award himself a pretend platinum medal for his Vancouver achievements, on his own official website. (Russian leader Vladimir Putin reinforced this stance, telling Plushenko via telegram: “Your silver is worth gold.”) We actually felt sort of bad for Evan (well, as bad as you can feel for an attractive gold-medal-winning Olympian) when he talked about how it felt to hear these sort of complaints from someone he considers a “hero.”
“It just stings a bit,” he said. “And I’ve tried really hard to not feel like it’s a personal attack, but it’s starting to feel that way. And coming from a stranger, it wouldn’t bother me, but coming from somebody I really look up to … ”
