Russian Plushenko beaten in men's singles Olympic figure skating
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The world champion Lysacek thus came out the first Olympic gold medalist of the event for the United States since the 1988 winner Brian Boitano.
Japan's Daisuke Takahashi took the bronze medal, which marked the Asian country's first ever Olympic medal in the men's figure skating.
Skating to "Tango Amore", Plushenko, who just came back from retirement this season, nailed a quadruple-triple toeloop combination, rather than the quad-triple-double combination he had planned, before jumping six triples and landing shaky on two of those.
The routine scored the 27-year-old 165.51 points, making him slipping to the second at 256.36 overall.
Lysacek, who was crowned the world champion in 2009, scored 167.37 points in free skating for a accumulated 257.67 points overall, after skating first in the last six-skater group and completing eight clean triples to "Sheherazade".
The result, of course, could not satisfy Plushenko, the three- time world champion of the earlier last decade.
Clip on charms"I'm happy with my programme, but not happy with the result," said the Russian, who claimed his sixth European title last month with the same routine. "I was sure that I had won my second Olympic Games. But this is the new system, the quad is not valued anymore. Apparently this is what figure skating needs today."
"As I said, I'd accept any result and a silver is great, but nevertheless it was a defeat today," he added. "I did everything the right way."
Asked whether he would announce to retire, just as he did five days after winning in Turin four years ago, Plushenko, with three medals after as many Winter Games, said: "Maybe this was my last competition, but we'll see."
Even his rival Lysacek gave him some credit. "I thought that he looked great. He had a great skate. It wasn't about gold, silver or bronze for me. That was a great skate," said the 24-year-old American.
Turin silver medalist Stephane Lambiel of Switzerland had his hand touching the ice on his opening quadruple toeloop in Thursday's free skating and scored a total of 246.72 points to finish the fourth.
Thomas sabo charmsHome favorite Patrick Chan, who's only 19-year-old and the 2009 world championships' silver medalist, was the fifth in his Olympic debut though he fell on a triple Axel.
Japan's other duo Nobunari Oda and Takahiko Kozuka were respectively placed seventh and eighth, though Oda stumbled badly on a triple loop and had to stop to fix his right skating boot. He finished seventh on 238.54 points with two points deduction for the incident.
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