Women’s Figure Skating: Hiding Abuse in Plain Sight
Content Warning: Abuse, Doping, Eating Disorders, Mental Health, Physical Injury
The Olympics are meant to be a joyous time when nations put away their differences and partake in friendly competition. Although this is the narrative that most want to be true, it is well known that the Olympics can be a tumultuous time full of controversy.
In 2022 the Beijing Winter Olympic Games resulted in a media frenzy as the world watched in horror when 15-year-old Kamila Valieva of Russia tested positive for the heart medication Trimetazidine. Scrutiny towards the Russian team had resulted, this intensified after the International Olympic Committee ruled that Valieva would be allowed to skate on the pretense that if she were to place on the podium there would be no medal ceremony or awards given out until the doping situation was handled.
Valieva messed up most of the elements as she performed her free skate program and rather than comforting the child who had just cracked under the pressure of her situation, her coach—Eteri Tutberidze—had scolded her asking why she gave up, all the while Kamila’s rink mate Alexandra Trusova, who had just place second, was visibly upset and was screaming at her coaches. No matter if you think Valieva was at fault, it must be remembered that she and the other girls in this situation were children and were most likely led down this path by the adults around them who were already seen as controversial by the time the doping scandal occurred.
Tuberize is an infamous coach in the figure skating community and is well known for producing multiple stars and Olympic champions in Women’s Single Skating. Still, her notoriety goes much deeper than producing champions. Over the years, she has coached many young girls into performing quad jumps—meaning each jump has four rotations in the air—creating the quad revolution with pre-pubescent children, sparking controversy about whether these demanding tricks can be good for their bodies long-term. This has unfortunately proven true as the “Eteri Expiration Date” has been a term coined for when these young girls reach the age of 14-17 since that is the age range the girls typically retire due to health problems.
This trend of health issues goes back to 2015 when Yulia Lipnitskaia, the fifth-place finisher at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, announced that she had left Tuberize’s team and had pulled out of multiple competitions. After not competing for a while, she announced retirement in 2017 at the age of 19 due to injuries and anorexia. This would become a common trend with the Eteri girls. In 2019, former Olympic champion Alina Zagitova announced an indefinite break due to a hip injury at the age of 17, and in 2020 14-year-old Alena Kanysheva had to retire since she could no longer jump due to a severe back injury after only training under Tuberitze for a couple of months.
Many speculate that the reason most of these girls have to retire early is due to the intense and abusive method Eteri and her coaching staff use to produce success. Eteri is quoted stating that her student Aliona Kostornaia should still be able to compete while injured even though it could lead to more damage, ignoring the safety and wellbeing of her students. Tuberize has also spoken openly about how Yulia Lipnitskaia could sustain herself on only “powdered nutrients” and Tuberitze’s main choreographer Daniil Gleikhengauz has stated in regards to Anna Shcherbakova that she was not obsessed with food like others and could be full after eating only two shrimps. Keeping track of food intake is normal in any sport but many of the discussed dietary topics mentioned are extreme and concerning. The girls were also not supposed to drink water during the Olympic season according to Alina Zagitova, preferring to rinse their mouths out with it instead to ensure no weight is gained. Eteri’s team states that being light increases aerodynamics but it seems they believe it is more important than their skater's health.
Despite the skating world knowing of the implied abusive coaching methods, Eteri and her team are still praised for being one of the best in the sport. In 2020 the International Skating Union (ISU) awarded Eteri their “Best Coach” award and Johnny Weir—a figure skating Olympian from the United States— had called her skating school the most iconic in the world. After the incident with Kamila Valieva in 2022, to protect the physical, mental, and emotional health of skaters, the ISU voted to change the age requirement for skaters to 17 in the 2024-25 season and onward.
While this is a good call to help at least push back the intense Olympic training until these children are older, the ISU and others still praise this coach and team despite having large amounts of evidence of mistreatment. Rather than punishing the adults around her the Court of Arbitration for Sport decided to ban Valieva from competitions for four years in 2024 and though Russia has been banned from competing due to doping and invading Ukraine, Eteri is still able to coach people from other countries even if her typical coaching demographic can’t compete internationally. The organizations involved in figure skating continue to let these adults off easy and undermine blatant abuse. The abuse of these young girls as well as their compliance with it have placed a gloomy cloud on the sport and if nothing is done only more young people are going to be hurt.
