The revelation seemed to create a space to talk about the training methods of Eteri Tutberidze, a coach at the Moscow skating school Sambo-70 who trains all three of the female Russian skaters competing in Beijing. The early response to the news of Valieva’s doping offense tended to focus on the abusive environment in which she trains. The discourse, both online and on NBC, feels markedly different than it was just a few days before CAS upheld RUSADA’s decision to let Valieva skate despite her positive test result. Her teammate Anna Shcherbakova is in second, with the sublime Kaori Sakamoto of Japan, who delivered what may have been the best short program of the night, in third. The hashtag #figureskatingisdead started to gain traction on social media during and after Valieva’s short program, which landed her in first despite a significant error on her triple axel. Skater after skater posted tweets about the integrity of sport, the level playing field and “ clean” athletes being at an unfair disadvantage in competition against athletes who have doped. The reactions of Weir and Lipinski echoed what many of their fellow skaters had been saying to reporters and on social media. (A system that the Russian skaters have used to their advantage to dominate the last eight years of women’s figure skating internationally.) Lipinski, certainly, should know a thing or two about how the skating sausage gets made: She and her husband produced a docuseries for Peacock about the skating judging scandal that rocked the 2002 Salt Lake City Games and led the International Skating Union (ISU) to eliminate the 6.0 scoring system in favor of a points-based judging system. They’ve been around skating for far too long to be surprised by cheating and corruption.
For the commentating duo, as well many other skaters and fans, this was beyond the pale.Īnd while it’s a truly bewildering decision, it’s equally bewildering to listen to these two veterans of the sport discuss the situation like they had just lost their innocence. She was still permitted to compete because of a last-minute ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to uphold the decision of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) to lift a provisional suspension on Valieva. Their professions of shock and disbelief are the result of the revelation that Valieva, whom both Lipinski and Weir gushed over in the team event - and throughout the 2021-22 season - had tested positive for trimetazidine, a banned substance. After the performance, through which Lipinski and Weir remained mostly silent, Lipinski said, “It’s the Olympic movement. “I feel so uncomfortable as a skater and as a skating fan,” Weir commented. I did not think this was going to happen, and I don’t think it should be happening.” “Seeing her on Olympic ice right now with everything we’ve discovered over the last week. “To be honest, I almost don’t believe what I’m seeing,” said Lipinski, who, like Valieva, was 15 at her first - and only - Olympics.
When 15-year-old Russian skater Kamila Valieva took to the ice Tuesday in her purple chiffon skating dress to warm up for the women’s short program, NBC analysts Johnny Weir and Tara Lipinski seemed at a loss for words - unusual for the chatty commentating team. This article is part of our Beijing Olympics series.
0 kommentar(er)
