Russian figure skating coach Alexei Mishin has said that doctors failed in their attempts to help Evgeni Plushenko recover from his back injury.

The 31-year-old was forced to pull out of the men's short programme at 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi with the problem on Thursday and is now "most likely" to retire from the sport.

"Evgeni began feeling pain already during the free skating in the team event," Mishin told Sport-Express.

"Yesterday he fell heavily from a quadruple jump in training. The pain didn't let up in the morning. We took medication, but it didn't help."

Plushenko helped Russia win gold in the team figure skating event on Sunday.