To beat Plushenko, Weir has to be a technical knockout

TURIN -- Johnny Weirski was hanging out rinkside at the Palaghiaccio practice rink yesterday morning, wearing one of those red CCCP warmup jackets that go back to the old Soviet days. Not that America's best male figure skater has gone over to the Cyrillic side or become a double agent.

''I'm enamored of all things Russian, I'm a Russophile," says Weir, who has been teaching himself how to speak ''po russki" and has named his dog Vanya (Johnny). ''I'm rooting for Russians to go 1-2-3-4, to win every event here. As much as I love some of the American skaters, I still am favoring the Russians."

As if the Motherland needs any help at these Games. The Russians already have won the pairs title for the 12th straight time. They're odds-on to take the dance. Irina Slutskaya is favored to claim her country's first women's crown. And Evgeny Plushenko, their three-time world champion, has a hefty 10-plus-point lead over Weir and Switzerland's Stephane Lambiel going into tonight's men's long program.

''It's a lot of points," concedes Lambiel, who won last year's world title after Plushenko pulled out injured before the free skate. ''But you don't know in sport what can happen."

What has happened at the last three Olympics is that a Russian -- Alexei Yagudin, Ilya Kulik, Alexei Urmanov -- has won the gold and nobody's betting against Plushenko making it four. He's healthy again after offseason groin surgery and he has the toughest technical program of the bunch. ''It's his to lose," Weir has been saying since he got here.

Not that Plushenko can't be beaten. Yagudin did it at Salt Lake City four years ago after Plushenko, skating to a Michael Jackson medley, blew his short program. France's Brian Joubert did it at the 2004 European championships and Canada's Emanuel Sandhu did it in the Grand Prix final later that year. But nobody's beaten Plushenko recently and the code of points format, used for the first time at Olympus, makes it much less likely.

Virtually all of Plushenko's lead after Tuesday's short program came from his technical score (49.69). Nobody else landed a quadruple-triple combination, a triple axel, and a triple lutz. But Plushenko's components score (40.97), the old artistic mark, was less than 2 points better than Weir's. If these Games still were being scored under the old 6.0 system, where the artistic mark was the tiebreaker in the long program, Plushenko would have much more to worry about.

The chatter around the Palavela this week has been about Weir being stylistically more Russian than Plushenko -- more graceful, more expressive, more lyrical. Plushenko is aerial and concussive, all whoosh, whir, and crunch. ''Plushenko is very modern Russian, Russian circa now," says Weir. ''I'm more Baryshnikov Russia."

There is a throwback, Bolshoi quality to Weir's skating (he dressed as a swan, complete with symbolic beak, in his short), which makes him the most artistic American performer since Brian Boitano, who was the last US man to win Olympic gold. Since then, it's been a Russian monopoly, with Ukraine's Viktor Petrenko winning one for the onetime Unified Team in 1992. But Plushenko may be the last in the line of succession.

In 2002, the Russians went 1-2-5 with Yagudin, Plushenko, and Alexander Abt. This time, they only qualified two men and the second one, Ilia Klimkin, is buried in 18th. When Plushenko moves on -- and it's unlikely he'll stick around until 2010 for a third go -- the Motherland won't have anybody near his level in the wings.

Which is why the squeeze is on him to win tonight. Plushenko has been the czar of men's skating for the entire quadrennium, he has a fat lead, and the long program is his strength. Weir, still something of a novelty on the world stage, is considered a charming oddity. ''The judges are starting to understand who I am and that I'm here for the long run," he says. ''But I'm not going to be one of those they hold up."

That's why Weir needs to land at least one quadruple jump tonight to jack up his technical score, which is less affected by subjectivity than the components score. He says he's been landing the quad regularly in practice, but won't decide until today whether he'll put it in the long program.

Weir may not be able to win the gold without doing four revolutions, but he certainly can make the medal stand with what he brought here.

''I'm not really nervous yet, but I think I'll be a little jittery," Weir said after yesterday morning's practice. ''I just want to have a good time out there. I had no real expectations coming in and now, sitting in second, that's incredible."