It was a glorious night for the Americans Thursday. American Evan Lysacek, who was in second place after Tuesday’s figure skating short program, gave one of the best, most beautiful, and most technically proficient performances of his career, and it won him the gold medal. Lysacek unseated the reigning world champion and Torino figure skating gold medalist Yevgeny Plushenko – even though Plushenko did this crazy “quad” that no other skater could do without falling on his ass. Unfortunaely for Plushenko, his performance just wasn’t that “pretty” in my opinion. He seemed less graceful and more raunchily feline (is that a good description?), rubbing his own body as he “danced” and jerked his way across the ice. Plushenko wasn’t thrilled about being unseated, either, telling reporters after Lyascek won the gold, “If the Olympic champion doesn’t know how to jump a quad, I don’t know. Now it’s not men’s figure skating, now it’s dancing.” Bitch! Here’s more from NBC’s coverage:

Evan Lysacek brought down the champion. Lysacek became the first U.S. man to win the Olympic gold medal since Brian Boitano in 1988, shocking everyone — maybe even himself — by upsetting defending champion Yevgeny Plushenko on Thursday night. Plushenko came out of retirement with the sole purpose of making a little history of his own with a second straight gold medal.

The last to skate. Plushenko held up both index fingers when he finished, as if to say, “Was there ever any question?” As it turned out, yes.

And it wasn’t really that close.

When Plushenko’s scores were posted, someone in the arena screamed, “Evan Lysacek has won the gold!” Backstage, surrounded by longtime coach Frank Carroll and pairs gold medalists Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo, Lysacek threw back his head in disbelief and utter elation.

“I could have stood up there for hours and thought about every moment of training that I was thinking, ‘God, what if one day?”‘ Lysacek said. “And it kept me going and it pushed me.”

The reigning world champion finished with a career-best 257.67, 1.31 ahead of the Russian. Daisuke Takahashi won the bronze, the first Japanese man to win a figure skating medal at the Olympic Games.

Johnny Weir was sixth and U.S. champ Jeremy Abbott rallied to finish ninth.

Lysacek, whose world title was the first by a U.S. man since 1996, looked almost dazed when he heard the first notes of the “Star-Spangled Banner.” But as he watched the flag rise, he broke into a wide grin.

“I saw that American flag go up and I couldn’t believe it was for me,” Lysacek said.

Someone handed him a U.S. flag as he left the medals podium to take on his victory lap, and he waved it a few times before twirling it above his head like a lasso. As he skated around the arena, he held a bouquet aloft in his right hand and clutched his gold medal in the left. No way anyone was going to take this away from him.

Especially not Plushenko.

Much had been made about of Plushenko’s transition scores, the mark given for the steps connecting the elements, as well as his other component scores — think of the old artistic marks. But those didn’t cost him the medal.

Lysacek edged Plushenko on the mark for their technical elements — jumps, spins and footwork. That’s the score where the three-time Olympic medalist and three-time world champion has pretty much made his trademark. And Lysacek won despite not doing a quadruple jump.

“If the Olympic champion doesn’t know how to jump a quad, I don’t know,” Plushenko said. “Now it’s not men’s figure skating, now it’s dancing.”

But Lysacek makes no apologies for what he does — and doesn’t — do. He’s done the quad before, but it puts a lot of stress on the left foot that he broke last year. He originally planned to do the quad here, but after feeling pain in the foot again after last month’s U.S. championships, he decided it wasn’t worth the risk of getting hurt and having to miss the games.

“If it was a jumping competition, they’d give you 10 seconds to go do your best jump. But it’s about 4 minutes and 40 seconds of skating and performing from start to finish,” Lysacek said. “That was my challenge tonight, and I feel like I did quite well.”

The first of the big guns to skate in the last group, Lysacek seemed more workmanlike than usual for the first three minutes of the program. Everything he did was technically perfect. His jumps were done with the control and dependability of a fine Swiss timepiece, and his spins were so well-centered you could see the tight little circle of his tracings clear across the ice.

He didn’t have all his usual flair and charisma, looking more focused on the tasks at hand. But when he landed his last jump, a double axel, Lysacek let loose. His face was so expressive that budding actors should have taken note, and he fixed the judges with a majestic glare during his circular steps. By the time he finished his final spin, fans were roaring their approval.

The last note of his music was still fading when Lysacek pumped his fists and screamed, “Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!” He clapped his hands and skated to center ice, throwing his arms out wide to the crowd and blowing kisses.

[From NBC Olympic coverage]

While I’m totally thrilled for Evan, and happy to see that bitch Plushenko get taken down a notch (I’m such a child of the Cold War, right?), the biggest disappointment for me (and for many, many fans of the sport) was Johnny Weir. Not to say that Weir didn’t skate his heart out and give one of the most beautiful and proficient performances of his career – he totally did. But Weir was grossly underscored by the judges, both in his short program on Tuesday, and last night.

The only explanation most commentators and writers can come up with is that despite Weir’s technical scores (6.19 points higher than that of bronze medalist Daisuke Takahashi), judges just didn’t like Weir or what he was doing on the ice. Those bitches! Weir was a graceful, fierce bitch to the end, however, standing up and motioning to his fans that they shouldn’t boo the scores, and telling the press afterwards: “As Lady Gaga would say, ‘I have all my role models out there.’ I may not be the most decorated person in the skating world, but judging by the audience reaction … they go on my journeys with me.” I f-cking love this kid.