Thread by @NotCelsiusDeg

Jackie's words do well to summarize my most prominent thoughts on the state of figure skating right now. #Beijing2022 #FigureSkating

https://twitter.com/rockerskating/status/1493117522601816068

In recent years, women's figure skating has favoured difficult jumps over artistry / skating skills. Judges and commentators view it as the way figure skating moves forward. Unfortunately, there's a price to the success for these young Russian skaters.

A short history of ROC skaters:
- Lipnitskaya (2014 Team Gold), retired at 19 due to anorexia
- Medvedeva (2018 Individual Silver), retired at 22 due to debilitating back injuries
- Zagitova (2018 Individual Gold), hasn't competed since 2019

This list does not include countless other skaters who've had careers cut short due to burnout and injuries from negligent training methods.
There are many other facets to the subject, but the one I'd like to briefly speak on is the message it sends to young athletes.

Athletes are under tremendous pressure to succeed. From a young age, they dedicate countless hours every week, hoping to compete at the Olympics one day. You push through debilitating injuries and long training hours so you can master triples / quads to be competitive.

The decision to let Kamila compete is signifying young skaters can abuse performance-enhancing drugs without consequences. If she's winning while doping, then why shouldn't I follow her? Why should I work harder than I need to if they won't punish those who cheat?

That's the most heartbreaking aspect. Many skaters (eg. Rika Kihira) in the past Olympic cycle have injured themselves attempting to catch up to the 3A / quads of the ROC skaters. Some of them have injured themselves to the point of being unable to compete at the Olympics.

Eteri (Kamila's coach) will continue to produce winning athletes before dropping them when they underperform due to injuries or health reasons (related to their training regiment). Countless skaters (and parents) will want to train under Eteri, hoping to achieve great results.

All of this is unsustainable not only for the sport, but for the livelihood of these young athletes. And for as long as no action is taken against ROC or Eteri, it'll continue to harm young skaters everywhere.

This thread doesn't touch on how unfair it is to the rest of the women's fields or to those who'll miss the medal ceremony. It doesn't touch on how unfair it is to those who've previously been penalized for failed drug tests under unfortunate circumstances.

There are many other discussions about them on Twitter. Regardless of whether they revoke the medals after the event, letting Kamila skate during an ongoing investigation in spite of a positive test has already done damage to the sport.