Numbers show regressive impact of Russian ban in skating. Is the decline good or bad?

/
Numbers show regressive impact of Russian ban in skating. Is the decline good or bad?

So here we are, hard upon a second straight figure skating Grand Prix Final without Russian entrants as justifiable punishment for their country’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, still waiting on a decision in the soap operatic Kamila Valieva doping case almost two years after the Russian phenom tested positive six weeks before the 2022 Winter Olympics.

The Valieva decision, which has delayed awarding the 2022 team event medals, is expected by mid-February.  That presumably is mid-February 2024, but who knows?  Anyway, it can go on the back burner for today’s discussion, which is about the state of the sport without the beleaguered Valieva and her compatriots as the Grand Prix Final begins Thursday in Beijing.

There is no doubt that the absence of the Russian women, who had utterly dominated the sport since 2014, has had a dramatic effect on jumping.

Read More

Valieva falls, women's singles event ends in anguish, anger and numbness

/
Valieva falls, women's singles event ends in anguish, anger and numbness

The scenes were surreal, full of the visceral pain of two Russian teenagers and the numbness of a third, flooded with the thunderous sobbing of a Japanese woman who is 21, all overcome by the swirling maelstrom that had enveloped the women’s singles event at the 2022 Winter Olympics for a week.

There was little joy in any of this when it ended, not for the four skaters who were atop the standings, not for those who watched it, hopefully not for the officials who avoided yet another surreal moment only because a 15-year-old crumbled in front of the world.

No asterisks now will be necessary for the medal results. There will be a formal ceremony Friday in which Anna Shcherbakova (ROC) will receive the gold, Aleksandra Trusova (ROC) the silver, Kaori Sakamoto of Japan the bronze.

Kamila Valieva’s collapse in the free skate made it possible for the International Olympic Committee to continue as planned with the presentation, to pretend that there is something normal about a situation filled with ethical and procedural and judicial questions, many of which likely will not be answered for months, if at all.

All we know with certainty is that Valieva skated this week under the shadow of a positive doping test and the weight of virtually universal agreement that her continued presence as an Olympic competitor was unfair to the other 29 skaters in the women’s field.

Read More

Valieva case spotlights an old question in figure skating: Will age minimum be raised?

/
Valieva case spotlights an old question in figure skating: Will age minimum be raised?

Would raising the minimum age in figure skating prevent another Kamila Valieva situation in the future?

It would not directly deal with the issue of doping that is at the center of this highly controversial case, which has utterly overshadowed the 2022 Winter Olympic figure skating competition for the week since it became public.

But it would address part of the multi-layered problem that may have contributed to Valieva, 15, having a banned drug, trimetazidine, appear in a doping control sample she gave Dec. 25.

Olympic champion Nathan Chen’s coach, Rafael Arutunian, has advocated raising the age minimum for several seasons. He thinks the Valieva case will put more pressure on the International Skating Union to do it.

“If you are skating in an adult competition, you should be an adult,” Arutunian told me this week via telephone.

NBC Olympics has confirmed a Russian TV report that the ISU governing council will put forward a proposal to raise the minimum age for Olympic-level (senior) international competition on the agenda of the ISU congress in June. The minimum would go from 15 to 17, cover only figure skating and be phased in.

Read More

Quad Queen Trusova does just one but still easily rules at Skate America

/
Quad Queen Trusova does just one but still easily rules at Skate America

It must have felt like a day off for Aleksandra Trusova.

The 17-year-old Quad Queen from Russia was a runaway winner Sunday at Skate America in Las Vegas despite limiting herself to just one free skate quadruple jump, a lutz, because of an unspecified foot injury.

“It was like a day of rest,” Trusova said. “We wanted to skate here with three quads but couldn’t. With the injury, I lost a lot of practice time.”

It was the first time Trusova has attempted fewer than three quads at international competition in 11 events dating to the fall of 2018. She did five clean quads in a national event last month.

The third Grand Prix triumph of Trusova’s career came with a total of 232.37 points, more than 15 ahead of compatriot Daria Usacheva, 15, who was making her senior Grand Prix debut.

Read More

Russians putting a world of hurt on women’s singles rivals

/
Russians putting a world of hurt on women’s singles rivals

This is what the rest of the women’s singles skaters in the world are up against.

(“The rest” means everyone who is not competing for Russia.)

Mother Russia sent three of her talented daughters to Las Vegas for Skate America, the first event of the Grand Prix Series in this Olympic season.

Only one, Aleksandra Trusova, was among the three Russian women who had swept the podium at last season’s World Championships, a feat in women’s singles previously pulled off by only a U.S. trio in 1991.

And Trusova came to Vegas with a foot injury that sparked talk she might withdraw.

And her two singles compatriots at Skate America, Daria Usacheva and Kseniia Sinitsyna, each was making her senior Grand Prix debut.

Yet they swept the top three places in Saturday’s short program, with all three recording personal bests: Trusova, 17, the reigning world bronze medalist, at 77.69; Usacheva, 15, at 76.71; and Sinitsina, 17, at 71.51.

Read More