The ARD Gala took place in Franfurt Germany on 15. December 2002. It was broadcasted live on tv.
Evgeni arrived from the USA where he had a competition just 4 hours before the show but he
gave two wonderful performances. He was one of the first skaters in the show. He skated his
short program to the music of Adagio by Albinoni and he was very expressive, he did a 3
Toeloop, 3 Axel, 3 Lutz perfectly clean also wonderful footwork!
Later in the show he had another performance and it was a total surprise! He skated his program
"Cirque du Soleil" again wich he skipped after showing it first at the Gran Prix final exactly
one year ago and just another time at the Russian Nationals, then he made a new program "Carmen"
and never went back to "Cirque du Soleil" and said in an interview because "...the program
caused a negative reaction from the public and judges. Why it happend, I don't know."
But many fans told him how much we loved this program and we told him it too at the
Bofrost Cup and answered that he may show it again as an exhibition. And HERE it is!!
It was really fabulous to see this program again but it is a lot different from the
original version but had the same costume with just little changes and skated just the
first 3 min. However it was great! He did 3 Toeloop-3 Toeloop-2 Rittberger, 2 Axel,
2 Axel-3 Toeloop, straight line footwork, 3 Toeloop, 2 Lutz (opend it) and the Biellmann
spin, he rarely does that spin in exhibition. Overall he looked very happy and a bit tired,
no wonder when he just arrived. He must have suffer from jet leg but he looked so strong.
Daniel Weiss, the commentator said: "I wouldn't be surprised if he would...no, he will
be for sure the Olympic Champion in Turin 2006....Evgeni Plushenko!!"
(What was not on tv is that Evgeni showed also his "St. Petersburg 300" free skate too.)
