OLYMPICS: Keith Duggan witnessed the magical Russian skater last night in Turin

A freezing mist fell across Turin last night but on the ice rink at Palavela the brilliance of one man was dazzling. Although the Russian skater Evgeny Plushenko was considered unassailable going into last night's freestyle programme, there was a sense of greatness in the making.

And many in the arena showed up for the privilege of seeing Plushenko skate to gold and to be able to say they had witnessed one of the great performances in winter Olympic history.

When the fourth group of skaters took the floor at around 10.30pm last night, it was as though the Palavela was no longer an ice arena but the stadium for a pop concert.

The presence of the formal, elegant Plushenko on the ice along with Johnny Weir, his punkish young rival, electrified the auditorium and brought a delicious touch of the old East-West rivalry that characterised Olympic showdowns in the old days.

Although there are connotations of Lou Reed's sugar-plum fairies about male figure skating, it is as tough and unforgiving as gymnastics.

And although the majority of us in the crowd were unfamiliar with this sport, you didn't have be expert to be captivated with the power and grace of Plusenko's athleticism.

His five-minute routine may well become the abiding image of Torino, a feat in its own right as male figure skaters traditionally played second fiddle in this sport.

Ever since Sonja Henje made the smooth move from charming Hitler and winning gold in Garmsich-Partenkirchen to becoming Hollywood's number one box office sensation, figure skating has always been celebrated for its female stars.

In Turin, the withdrawal of American starlet Michelle Kwan caused consternation on the opening weekend. And from Nancy Kerrigan in Lillehammer to the mania that followed Katarina Witt, the Stasi pride and international heartbreaker who received some 35,000 love letters on her way to Olympic gold in Calgary in 1988, drama has always followed the women's skate game.

Last night, however, Witt was among those in the crowd here to witness the coronation of the Russian, whom she has already announced as her favourite.

Plushenko did not disappoint. Wearing a plain black costumes and a dashing red neckpiece and seducing the local crowd by skating to the theme music from The Godfather, Plushenko was untouchable, achieving a new personal best score of 167.67.

The ice was strewn in garlands after his performance and once the adjudication was announced, it was clear that the rest of the field would not catch the Russian, not even the flamboyant Weir, who had the misfortune of immediately following his rival.

There is a great scene in the Ben Stiller spoof film Zoolander where the hero mortifies his blue-collar father and brother by returning to his coalmining hometown after he has made it big in the fey world of international modelling. It is not hard to imagine that the reaction must have been the same in Weir's home place of Coatesville in Pennsylvania, a state more renowned for producing hard-hitting grid-iron men that ephemeral waif's of the ice.

And you can be certain that Weir's nickname, "Tinkerbelle", does not trip easily off the tongues of the more traditional Coatesville men. But Weir has taken no prisoners when it has come to promoting himself and his sport, favouring provocative costumes on ice and shooting his mouth off as freely as he pleased.

After skating in the men's short programme on Tuesday night, he turned his attention to the state of the house-keeping in the Olympic village.

"My place was so dirty, I mopped the floor myself. Twice," he scolded. "Not to diss the Italians but, oh my God, the dirt. It was terrible."

But he was gracious enough to acknowledge Plushenko had all but wiped the floor ice with everybody else that night. The Russian's performance was flawless and was rewarded with a world record score of 90.66 and a 10-point lead on the American.

"Unless he falls over three times, he won't be caught," Weir said before last night. "You have to be realistic."

It is not as if Plushenko was an overnight sensation. He was the silver medallist in Salt Lake City four years ago, where he was out-skated by Aleksei Yagudin, with whom he had studied under the revered Russian disciplinarian, Aleksei Mishin. The coach was fond of referring to his two stars as "garbage" and "trash" and his constant goading finally estranged Yagudin, who found another coach before the Salt Lake games.

Plushenko stayed with the old man, though. As a child, he had lived in a trailer in Siberia, where poor heating and malnourishment caused him to succumb to several bouts of pneumonia and frequent bouts of nose bleeding. It was only when the family moved to Volvograd he was encouraged to skate to try to improve his strength.

When the local arena was closed down, Plushenko was sent to St Petersburg to audition for Mishin. "I was 11 when I came to St Petersburg and that is when my life as an adult began," he would say years later.

That residue of poverty and the ghost of the sickly child was discernible in Plushenko even last night as he enchanted the crowd, his pale features and lank blond hair virtually transparent under the blazing spotlights and the television lights. But he owned the theatre and afterwards, blew kisses as supporters from all nations rose for a sustained ovation.

Weir did his best to warm up in the midst of the tumult. But he knew Plushenko had claimed the rink and, as of last night, was the king of figure skating on all ice between the north and south polar caps.