ST. PETERSBURG (Sputnik) – One of Russia’s most popular athletes, two-time Olympic Champion Evgeniy Plushenko announced he would return on ice in the forthcoming 2015/2016 figure skating season after a two-year break.
Plushenko won team competition gold medal during the Sochi 2014 Olympic Games, but withdrew from men’s individual competition citing back problems.
“I will start training on April 20,” he told R-Sport by phone.
“I feel 100 percent healthy now, that’s why I decided to resume my sporting career and try to take part and win medals in my fifth Olympic Games.”
His coach told R-Sport Friday that Plushenko is expected to enter competitions in 2016.
“It is not true to say that he is coming back, because he never left,” Alexei Mishin said.
In January, Mishin said the skater had had a back disc replaced at a clinic in Israel. Plushchenko's wife later posted photographs on the Internet of the 32-year-old lying in a hospital bed, to refute all claims about having back surgery for PR purposes.
