(Reuters) – From figure skating trailblazer to lightning rod for doping criticism on the Olympics, Russian Kamila Valieva has endured a psychological and bodily check that few 15-year-old women will ever endure.
As the worldwide highlight dazzles on the elfin teenager, uncomfortable questions swirl across the sport and whether or not or not the minimal age for rivals — at the moment 15 — must be raised.
American Mariah Bell skated in the ladies’s singles on Tuesday, and as she left the ice took a swipe at minors competing on the largest stage.
“I completely imagine that there must be an age restrict,” the 25-year-old mentioned, when requested if the restrict must be 17.
“I do know for me, personally, I do know once you’re rising there’s plenty of adjustments taking place. There are minors competing… that is an entire completely different factor.”
On Tuesday, Valieva completed high in the quick programme of the ladies’s competitors, dominating the occasion solely a day after being cleared to skate by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, a choice that sparked world condemnation.
Child stars are hardly new in figure skating, and youngsters have received the ladies’s singles gold medal in six of the previous seven Olympics.
However, Valieva’s constructive drug check has shone gentle on a world the place youngsters are skilled relentlessly in the pursuit of medals, after which shortly disappear as puberty adjustments their our bodies and their outcomes decline.
The treadmill of kid figure skating champions has solely quickened in latest years with the emergence of a dominant Russian programme spearheaded by Valieva’s coach Eteri Tutberidze.
The 47-year-old’s teenage prodigies are amongst few feminine skaters who can execute the quadruple jumps that produce excessive scores in competitors and supply a key benefit.
Biomechanics consultants say youthful skaters could have a bonus with the quad as a result of their slim hips and shoulders may assist them rotate sooner in the air.
It’s a formulation that has proved vastly profitable for Russian figure skating whereas typically leaving a brief shelf-life for the athletes involved.
Swedish skater Josefin Taljegard mentioned that was one thing that must be addressed.
Pushing again on the suggestion the age restrict must be lifted, she mentioned: “It is troublesome to reply as a result of we do not need the junior worlds (championships) to be higher than the traditional worlds.
“It’s not like Valieva is not good at performing,” the 26-year-old added. “If it was solely the jumps, then possibly, however they’re good at all the things so it is so laborious to say. Maybe as an alternative of placing a decrease age restrict, encouraging folks to remain in the game a little bit bit longer.”
STRUGGLE WITH ANOREXIA
Alina Zagitova, who was 15 when she received the gold medal on the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics, left Tutberidze’s coaching group and competitors over two years in the past.
Yulia Lipnitskaya, who as a 15-year-old helped Russia to gold in the group occasion on the 2014 Sochi Games, retired in 2017, citing a protracted battle with anorexia.
Rival coaches have mentioned the minimal competitors age has enabled the Russian success and turned the ice rink right into a youngsters’s battleground.
Olympic medallist Adam Rippon, who coaches Bell, mentioned his 25-year-old nationwide champion would have little hope of beating Valieva and her 17-year-old compatriots Alexandra Trusova and Anna Shcherbakova at Beijing.
“If there are two people who find themselves competing in opposition to one another, like a girl that will get a interval and has breasts and has hips in opposition to a younger little lady who’s 80 kilos, is it a good enjoying subject?” he requested Reuters.
“Our our bodies come in all sizes and styles. But particularly in ladies’s sports activities, developmentally, what you’re in a position to do and what’s protected so that you can attempt as you become old adjustments.”
Apart from accidents, former figure skaters have spoken of the emotional toll on youngsters, with some struggling psychological sicknesses together with melancholy, consuming problems and physique dysmorphia as they attempt to maintain in form.
Canadian pairs skater Kirsten Moore-Towers, who received a group silver medal on the Sochi Olympics, mentioned in December that she developed an consuming dysfunction at 15 after being inspired by a coach to purge after consuming to shed weight.
“Toxic practices in sport, like public weigh-ins, physique shaming — these issues want to finish,” she instructed Canadian newspaper, the Globe and Mail.
Despite calls to boost the minimal competitors age for the welfare of kids, world figure skating has resisted them.
A proposal introduced by Dutch figure skating officers to boost the age from 15 to 17 was rejected at a gathering of the game’s world governing physique, the International Skating Union, in 2018.
If that proposal had been profitable, figure skaters like 16-year-old American Alysa Liu, would have been barred in Beijing.
The age problem got here into the highlight once more in 2020 following the sudden demise of Ekaterina Alexandrovskaya in Moscow on the age of 20, two years after she represented Australia in the pairs occasion at Pyeongchang.
Alexandrovskaya, who switched nationality from Russia to Australia on the age of 16 to coach for the Olympics, suffered from melancholy and alcohol issues and stop the game after being recognized with epilepsy, media reported.
About a month after her demise, ISU President Jan Dijkema instructed Australian media that the minimal age may be mentioned on the ISU’s 2021 congress, which was then cancelled on account of COVID-19.
The ISU didn’t present remark to Reuters on the appropriateness of the minimal age of 15, or whether or not the governing physique was contemplating elevating it.
(Additional reporting by Hritika Sharma in Beijing; modifying by Pritha Sarkar)
