What's the Story?

Oh, the story. Big story. Complicated story. Ultimately, a tragic story for a young, beautiful Russian skater who was failed by the adults who were supposed to be supporting her. Kamila Valieva became the headline for these Olympic Games, but for all the wrong reasons. Valieva was expected to take gold pretty easily with her five quadruple jumps and exquisite skating skills. But, mysteriously, the results from a drug test that Valieva had taken in December became public knowledge just a few days before the women's competition was due to begin. Valieva failed this drug test. But she was still allowed to compete. Why? According to the World Anti-Doping Agency, Valieva is a protected minor under the law, so even though she failed the drug test, she was not immediately banned from competition as older skaters would have been. However, it was made clear to everybody that there would be no medal ceremony for the women if Valieva medaled. The pressure on this 15 year old was immense, and there was pretty much no winning for her. We will never know how or why, but Valieva ended up fourth in this competition--a feat in itself considering how far ahead Valieva was after the short program (the first of two programs that skaters perform). So, the medal ceremony went forth after a massive breakdown from Alexandra Trusova, the Russian girl (I would say woman, but she is only 17 years old) who placed second. The gold medalist, Anna Shcherbakova sat quietly behind the scenes, waiting for someone to congratulate her, but the action was dominated by Valieva, Trusova, and the villain behind it all, Eteri Tutberidze.

Eteri Tutberidze is an iconic and infamous coach. She churns out gold medalists and then discards them like disposable cameras. The Russian figure skaters at the 2014 and 2018 Olympics have all since retired (they're probably 20-25 years old now), and the Russian figure skaters from the 2022 Olympics will probably follow a similar trajectory. Her methods verge on psychotic, and are definitely abusive. Tutberidze forces her athletes to eat and drink as little as possible so they do not gain weight, they train for hours and hours every day, and she often pits her students against each other to make them work harder, or feel bad about themselves. She has propelled Russian figure skating to the absolute top, even earning an "Order of Honor" from Putin himself, but at great cost to a number of talented young skaters. Most analysts, critics, and skaters are convinced that Tutberidze had knowledge of or is in some way responsible for the banned substance found in Valieva's test. Tutberidze has left her athletes with chronic back and muscle pain, with severe eating disorders, and with disillusionment of the sport, with many of her skaters retiring from skating before their 21st birthdays. Shcherbakova and Trusova performed beautiful, apparently drug-free programs, but their Olympics, and the Olympics of every woman at that competition, was overshadowed by Valieva's story—yet another story we may never know the real answer to.

Food for Thought

How does Russian figure skating need to change to be more sustainable? Where should the international governing bodies draw the lines in coaching practices? Why hasn't there been more significant change over the last twelve years concerning these incredibly young Russian skaters?

Sports are all about pushing the human body to the limit, seeing how far we can go, how fast we can run, how high we can jump. What do we do when the system that aims to protect the integrity of sport, especially at the Olympics, seems to fail at exactly the wrong time?