The Winter Olympics Games 2022 Discussion Thread

[I Am A Swede]

I hope she can find the strength to overcome all that's happened.    

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Kamila Valieva's controversial Winter Olympics ended in tears with a fourth-place finish after the 15-year-old fell multiple times in the free skate.

[Cat]

It was pretty hard to watch. You could see her misery, and I had tears too, not going to lie. She's only 15, and she's literally taking the fall for a state doping system. 

I would be surprised if we see her ice dance again, sadly. She will be banned for doping, but her coaches won't be. Even though they are the ones who have designed this system and impose it on these young children. Because they are obsessed with quad jumps and the high technical marks the quads bring with them. It is now a jumping competition. And the Russian coaches have figured out that young, tiny, thin teens can jump quads the best. It gets more difficult as you get older. That's why most of these Russian skaters retire at 19 or 20, because they can't jump the quads as well. And because of the injuries they sustain with their intensive training. The angina medication found in Valieva's bloodstream is not to aid a dance performance, it is actually to push endurance, so they can train longer and through pain.

[carolineg]

So I was as highly competitive figure skater when I was younger until about 18.  I think I have mentioned this before offhand here.

Kamila is one of the greatest talents I have ever seen.  This Russian coaching program has long been suspecting of doping though.  There are girls upon talented girls in this particular camp.  It's not only Kamila that had a breakdown today, but all 3 Russian girls are coached by the same team.  It was the craziest thing I have ever seen.  Valieva melting down, the winner (Scherbekova) standing alone after her win, and Trusova (2nd) having a meltdown before the awards is nothing I have seen in my years of watching skating.  I can honestly say as someone who is still part of the figure skating community-I am not sure where we go from here.  The whole event felt very tainted and sad.

[Cat]

Trusova had a meltdown before the awards? How did i miss this?

Scherbakova skated beautifully. I've always been in awe of Russian ice dancing (hell, Russian dancing in general), but the doping cloud takes away from all these girls' immense talent as ice dancers. The fact that Russians scored gold and silver anyway, will have other teams look at that and think 'What is the point of competing if you're not on performance enhancing drugs and don't have Russian clout to bribe the Olympic Committee?'

I have no idea where figure skating goes from here. I have no idea where the ROC goes from here either.

Edited February 17, 2022 by Cat

[carolineg]

It was on the USA coverage right after Kamila left the kiss n' cry.   She was saying (in Russian) she wouldn't go on the medal stand and didn't understand the results.  She was hysterical and yelling, but eventually calmed down to do the awards ceremony.  It's on the Peacock Premium feed still at the end.  I don't speak Russian-Johnny Weir was translating and the full translation is on social media.

Trusova has long been my favorite since she was a young, young girl.  Anna is okay to me, but I actually would have preferred Trusova to win just out of the sheer technical content.  It's so hard to say how long these girls have been doping because Kamila, Sasha, and Anna were 'known' when they were 9 or 10 as exceptional talents in skating circles.  The fact is they are so, so far ahead of the field it's crazy.   But doping is doping and we had a girl in US pairs (Jessica Calalang) that had to sit out about 8 months for doping because of eyelash serum until she was cleared.  So it's awful it happened to a lovely, wonderful skater like Valieva and the adults around her are to blame, but what's fair is fair.  And I would have pulled her out before the event to protect her from this and the worst skate of her entire life.

[Cat]

You put it perfectly. There should not be one rule for other competitors regarding zero-tolerance doping and a special dispensation for the ROC team. It renders the whole thing ridiculous and completely tarnishes the sport. Valieva should have been sent home and could have come back to the world championships. The Russians are so good at this, they don't need the doping, I don't believe. Their talent and technique are on another level all on their own.

I will go find the Trusova clip but I'll take your word for it. She had +5 quads in her program, the most difficult ever conceived. However, fron a performance standpoint, I thought Scherbakova did better. It was the full package of art and technique, whereas I felt Trusova was just ticking off the technical elements. JMO of course.

[carolineg]

This is just a small part of her meltdown lol.  

 

Your opinion about Trusova is correct, but I have just loved her since she was 13 and skated to Big Spender.  I love inappropriate tacky programs sometimes.  She started this quad trend and deserved some reward.  Anna's jumping technique is very questionable to me, but she is the much prettier skater.  Valieva was the whole package.  It's a shame because these girls could have stood at the top on their own above the doping.

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[Cat]

The despair in Trusova is something else. Working so hard for years and years and years, with a program you know is technically the most difficult. She obviously feels that Scherbakova was not up to her standard (and IA there is something odd about the way Scherbakova lands her jumps. But I guess the judges felt she was the sweeter, more acceptable face of the Russian skating team?).

Added to which you have intense pressure from that coach Eteri Tutberidze to win at all costs, otherwise you will be replaced by any number of young figure skaters. Given that most of Tutberidze's charges retire at 19 or 20 (somewhat broken either physically or emotionally), Trusova at 17 probably felt this was her last chance at an Olympic gold medal, because she is unlikely to be part of the team at 21.

Given the tough, cruel skating world, I'm not sure how I feel about having such young kids whose lives are placed in the hands of abusive doping coaches like Tutberidze. Not that the West is much better -- look at our gymnastics team and the years of abuse Simone Biles and others experienced. How to improve conditions for these young athletes working to compete at the highest level? How to avoid exploitation and abuse? (That's not a question for you to answer, BTW! I'm just asking rhetorically).

[DramatistDreamer]

Somebody said this  might as well be a summary of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games.

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[DramatistDreamer]