OREANDA-NEWS Two-time Olympic figure skating champion Evgeny Plushenko believes that Russian Peter Gumennik did not have enough drive in a short rental at the Olympic Games in Italy.

"Average" is exactly the word that can describe the rental of Pyotr Gumennik in the short program at the 2026 Olympics. First of all, because of a mistake on the cascade, he did not perform a quadruple flip with too much confidence, as a result, he attached a double sheepskin coat to it," Sport-Express quotes Plushenko as saying.

"But most importantly, I was a little lacking in drive. Flying. Airiness. Apparently, because of problems with the music, which had to be changed on the eve of the Olympic debut," Plushenko complained.

As reported, Humennik was not approved of the music for the short program from the film "The Perfumer" due to copyright issues. The athlete performed to a composition by Edgar Hakobyan called Waltz 1805.

The titled figure skater drew attention to the fact that after a mistake on the cascade, Humennik "clamped down, involuntarily began to think about how best to perform other elements..."

"However, even with an ideal performance, he would hardly have risen above 8th-10th place at the end of the short one," he noted.

Praising some of the participants in the short program (Japanese Yuma Kagiyama, Frenchman Adam Xiao Him Fa, American Ilya Malinin), Plushenko felt that according to the results of the free program, Humennik would not rise above sixth place.