Injured Plushenko claims gold

Evgeni Plushenko put a troublesome knee to the back of his mind to post a new free skate season's best and beat Artur Gachinski to win men’s gold at the ISU European Figure Skating Championships.

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The 29-year-old has been the talk of championships in Sheffield having been given clearance to compete at them at the start of January despite not possessing the required qualifying score.

He comfortably came through the preliminaries but had to make do with second place to training partner and fellow Russian Gachinski after the short programme on Thursday.

Plushenko stated afterwards that he has a knee injury that will require surgery, ruling him out of the World Championships in March, but he once again stole the show in the free skate.

Watch the gold medallist's entire programme:

The three-times Olympic medallist posted a season’s best 176.52, as did Gachinski - but, with his 161.47 and the lead after the short programme just 0.09, Plushenko came out on top.

Plushenko scored 261.23 overall while Gachinski could only muster 246.27 for silver with France’s Florent Amodio completing the podium after scoring 155.70 in the free skate for 234.18 overall.