Russian figure skater Evegeni Plushenko returns to ice after back surgery

Russian figure skater Evgeni Plushenko has first taken the ice after he had undergone a spine surgery. The athlete wrote in his Twitter microblog that he feels great.

At the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi Plushenko won gold in team figure skating event. The athlete withdrew from men’s individual figure skating tournament because of severe back pain. In March, Plushenko underwent a surgery in Israel.
Last Thursday, Russia’s Figure Skating Federation made a decision to include Plushenko in the preliminary list of candidates to Russia’s national team. Plushenko’s coach Alexei Mishin had earlier told the Figure Skating Federation that the athlete would start training for the next sports season on June 1.

The president of the Figure Skating Federation Alexander Gorshkov said that Plushenko has the right to continue his sports career if he wants. “If Evgeni (Plushenko) wants (to continue his sports career), he has the right to do so,” Gorshkov said. “He may even perform at large-scale international competitions if he skates well enough. I think his performance at the Sochi Olympics proved he is capable of doing just that,” the FSF president added.

In February, Plushenko announced he would resign from sports, but later said he did not rule out coming back to figure skating and performing at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyongchang.