THINGS FALL APART
Russian trio of skaters face uncertain futures after dramaBy JAMES ELLINGWORTH
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Kamila Valieva, of the Russian Olympic Committee, reacts after competing in the women's free skate program during the figure skating competition at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Thursday, Feb. 17, 2022, in Beijing. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
BEIJING (AP) — The gold medalist said she felt empty. The silver medalist pledged never to skate again. The favorite left in tears without saying a word.
After one of the most dramatic nights in their sport’s history, Russia’s trio of teenage figure skating stars each enter an uncertain future.
Her Olympics and life turned upside down by a doping case, world record holder Kamila Valieva faces a possible ban and a coach whose first response to her disastrous skate Thursday was criticism.
“Why did you let it go? Why did you stop fighting?” cameras caught Eteri Tutberidze — the notoriously strict coach who will be investigated over Valieva’s failed drug test — telling the 15-year-old after she fell twice and dropped out of medal contention.
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As Valieva placed fourth and left in tears, she received a message of support from 2018 silver medalist Evgenia Medvedeva.
“I am so happy that this hell is over for you,” Medvedeva posted on Instagram. “I really value you and love you and I’m happy that you can relax now, little kitten. I congratulate you on the end of the Olympics and I hope that you can live calmly and breathe.”
Unfortunately for Valieva, she can’t relax just yet. The failed drug test which turned her life upside down still hangs over her head.
While she was allowed to keep skating in Beijing by the Court of Arbitration for Sport to avoid “irreparable harm,” that ruling is valid only until a full investigation of her Dec. 25 test for the banned substance trimetazidine is resolved. The case could take months and still cost Valieva and her Russian teammates the gold medal they won in last week’s team event.
Runner-up Alexandra Trusova was also in despair after her history-making five quadruple jumps proved not enough to beat teammate Anna Shcherbakova to the gold medal. “I hate this sport,” she shouted at the side of the rink. “I won’t go onto the ice again.”
Trusova said she was happy with the skate but not with the result, an apparent jab at he judging that gave Shcherbakova enough extra points for artistry to keep her ahead.
Trusova could be heard crying that she was the only one without a gold medal. The Russians won the team event using Valieva twice instead of allowing Shcherbakova or Trusova to skate one of the women’s programs. That win could be stripped because of Valieva’s doping case.
Trusova later said her comments about not skating again had been “emotional”, the result of missing her family and her dogs, but didn’t commit to compete at next month’s world championships.
Shcherbakova seemed unsure how to react the drama unfolding around her, and said she felt sorry for Valieva. “I still don’t comprehend what has happened. On the one hand I feel happy, on the other I feel this emptiness inside.”
Shcherbakova arrived in Beijing as the world champion from 2021, but Valieva’s record-breaking scores and Trusova’s all-or-nothing quads turned her into an underdog to her younger teammates. Being called an Olympic champion was “unreal,” Shcherbakova said. “I don’t feel like it’s me they’re talking about.”
Russian skaters’ careers are typically so short that at the age of 17, Shcherbakova almost immediately faced questions over whether she would retire.
“I have the desire to skate, and I can’t even imagine being without figure skating,” she said. The 2026 Olympics are a long way off, and no Tutberidze-trained woman has ever stayed in elite skating long enough to become a two-time Olympian. The last woman to retain the gold was Katarina Witt of East Germany in 1988.
What happens next for Shcherbakova and her teammates-turned-rivals depends on many factors — the eventual doping verdict, any further punishment for Tutberidze and the rest of her entourage and the myriad of injuries which can plague young skaters performing quads.
As she tries to recover from a failure on the sport’s biggest stage, Valieva remains at the center of a confrontation between Russia and international institutions. About six hours before she took to the ice, Russian Olympic Committee president Stanislav Pozdnyakov said he would not give up the team event gold medal “under any circumstances, regardless of the results of the disciplinary investigation into the athlete.”
Just one of many unresolved questions for the three young Russian skaters.
___
More AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/winter-olympics and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
BEIJING (AP) — The gold medalist said she felt empty. The silver medalist pledged never to skate again. The favorite left in tears without saying a word.
After one of the most dramatic nights in their sport’s history, Russia’s trio of teenage figure skating stars each enter an uncertain future.
Her Olympics and life turned upside down by a doping case, world record holder Kamila Valieva faces a possible ban and a coach whose first response to her disastrous skate Thursday was criticism.
“Why did you let it go? Why did you stop fighting?” cameras caught Eteri Tutberidze — the notoriously strict coach who will be investigated over Valieva’s failed drug test — telling the 15-year-old after she fell twice and dropped out of medal contention.
WINTER OLYMPICS
Shcherbakova wins figure skating gold as Valieva collapses
Olympics Live: Kamila Valieva's falls leave her in 4th place
Poulin leads Canada women to Olympic gold in 3-2 win over US
As Valieva placed fourth and left in tears, she received a message of support from 2018 silver medalist Evgenia Medvedeva.
“I am so happy that this hell is over for you,” Medvedeva posted on Instagram. “I really value you and love you and I’m happy that you can relax now, little kitten. I congratulate you on the end of the Olympics and I hope that you can live calmly and breathe.”
Unfortunately for Valieva, she can’t relax just yet. The failed drug test which turned her life upside down still hangs over her head.
While she was allowed to keep skating in Beijing by the Court of Arbitration for Sport to avoid “irreparable harm,” that ruling is valid only until a full investigation of her Dec. 25 test for the banned substance trimetazidine is resolved. The case could take months and still cost Valieva and her Russian teammates the gold medal they won in last week’s team event.
Runner-up Alexandra Trusova was also in despair after her history-making five quadruple jumps proved not enough to beat teammate Anna Shcherbakova to the gold medal. “I hate this sport,” she shouted at the side of the rink. “I won’t go onto the ice again.”
Trusova said she was happy with the skate but not with the result, an apparent jab at he judging that gave Shcherbakova enough extra points for artistry to keep her ahead.
Trusova could be heard crying that she was the only one without a gold medal. The Russians won the team event using Valieva twice instead of allowing Shcherbakova or Trusova to skate one of the women’s programs. That win could be stripped because of Valieva’s doping case.
Trusova later said her comments about not skating again had been “emotional”, the result of missing her family and her dogs, but didn’t commit to compete at next month’s world championships.
Shcherbakova seemed unsure how to react the drama unfolding around her, and said she felt sorry for Valieva. “I still don’t comprehend what has happened. On the one hand I feel happy, on the other I feel this emptiness inside.”
Shcherbakova arrived in Beijing as the world champion from 2021, but Valieva’s record-breaking scores and Trusova’s all-or-nothing quads turned her into an underdog to her younger teammates. Being called an Olympic champion was “unreal,” Shcherbakova said. “I don’t feel like it’s me they’re talking about.”
Russian skaters’ careers are typically so short that at the age of 17, Shcherbakova almost immediately faced questions over whether she would retire.
“I have the desire to skate, and I can’t even imagine being without figure skating,” she said. The 2026 Olympics are a long way off, and no Tutberidze-trained woman has ever stayed in elite skating long enough to become a two-time Olympian. The last woman to retain the gold was Katarina Witt of East Germany in 1988.
What happens next for Shcherbakova and her teammates-turned-rivals depends on many factors — the eventual doping verdict, any further punishment for Tutberidze and the rest of her entourage and the myriad of injuries which can plague young skaters performing quads.
As she tries to recover from a failure on the sport’s biggest stage, Valieva remains at the center of a confrontation between Russia and international institutions. About six hours before she took to the ice, Russian Olympic Committee president Stanislav Pozdnyakov said he would not give up the team event gold medal “under any circumstances, regardless of the results of the disciplinary investigation into the athlete.”
Just one of many unresolved questions for the three young Russian skaters.
___
More AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/winter-olympics and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
Rebecca BAILEY
Wed, 16 February 2022
Russia's Kamila Valieva is at the centre of a doping controversy at the Beijing Olympics
Teenage skater Anna Shcherbakova next to her coach Eteri Tutberidze in Beijing (AFP/Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV)
On the ice, the 15-year-old Russian Kamila Valieva exudes composure and emotional maturity.
But as a Beijing Olympic doping scandal exposes the teenager's vulnerability, debate has reopened over age in women's figure skating and whether young athletes are adequately protected.
Female skaters have always skewed young, with six of the last seven Olympic golds won by teenagers.
This year is likely to be no exception, with Valieva and her 17-year-old teammates Alexandra Trusova and Anna Shcherbakova tipped to sweep the podium.
All three train with coach Eteri Tutberidze, who has led a revolution in women's figure skating over the last eight years, producing teenage Russian star after star capable of athletic feats of ever-increasing complexity.
But concerns have been raised over whether the technical brilliance they display withers away with puberty, leaving them prone to burn-out, injury and, ultimately, the figure-skating scrapheap.
Former figure skater Katarina Witt, who won gold in 1984 and 1988 for East Germany, used the term "throwaway society".
"For years I have asked why 15 and 16-year-old Russian talents win the Olympic Games with exceptional performances and then leave the world stage of competitive sports forever, too often with health issues," she wrote on Facebook.
Witt called for the minimum competition age for senior skaters to be raised from 15, an idea which has been floated before in the sport but has never borne fruit.
In Tuesday's short programme in Beijing -- which Valieva won -- Karen Chen, considered a veteran at 22, said that when she was young she wasn't afraid of anything.
"I was just kind -- I don’t know if robot was the right word -- but my coach would tell me to go do something and I would just go do it," said the American.
Her teammate Mariah Bell, at 25 the oldest US woman to compete in Olympic figure skating since 1928, said she "absolutely" believed the age limit should be changed.
Switzerland's Alexia Paganini agreed that it would provide more "motivation to create a skater who has longevity", while Natasha McKay of Britain said that injuries might be reduced.
- 'Quad Squad' -
Tutberidze's school of skating sensations exemplify these concerns -- so far, none have seen more than one Olympics.
Her breakout star, Yulia Lipnitskaya, was 15 when she won Olympic gold at the 2014 Sochi Games in the team event.
Her mesmerising "Schindler's List" routine dazzled observers, who predicted a glittering career. Three years later, Lipnitskaya retired.
In 2016, she had suffered a serious leg injury and never again reached top form.
She finished last in her final competition, later telling Russian media that afterwards she "came home, put (her) skates in the closet, and not seen them since".
She also revealed she had undergone treatment for anorexia.
At the 2018 Olympics, two different teenage Russians -- again, both Tutberidze's students -- were on the podium.
Alina Zagitova and Evgenia Medvedeva took gold and silver respectively -- but this Olympics, they too have been eclipsed.
Both say they cannot match the "quad squad" of Valieva, Trusova and Shcherbakova -- a reference to the trio's ability to perform quadruple jumps, where the skater rotates four times in the air.
Experts say quads are easier for younger women who have not yet gone through puberty, and are lighter and more aerodynamic.
- 'Too dangerous' -
Now 19, Zagitova told the Olympic news site that quads were "too dangerous" for her to do and that she would need to lose weight to be able to attempt one.
Medvedeva has been plagued by injuries, including one to her back that she says left her only able to jump in one direction at the age of 22.
Zagitova, who is working as a broadcaster at the Beijing Games, said it was hard for her to watch figure skating.
"You still get the same feelings in your soul," she said. "There's a feeling of euphoria, as if you yourself were out on the ice."
Shcherbakova and Trusova have been dogged by speculation they are skating through injuries this season.
But after Tuesday's short programme, asked whether her coach's methods were too harsh, second-placed Shcherbakova was defiant.
"I've been in her group since I was nine," she scowled.
"If I’m not changing the coach, it means that I like this coach. We are very fruitful together, we are achieving a lot, as you see."
reb/pst
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