Shcherbakova wins figure skating gold as Valieva collapses; bronze for Sakamoto

Valieya did mistake after mistake, seems all intentional just not to spoil medal ceremony for others.

Felt sorry for Shcherbakova, won and sat in silence. Unable to celebrate the joyous occasion. Only Sakamoto with the unexpected medal was happy.

Was watching the BBC coverage, Robin Cousins was choked with tears and emotions at the whole fiasco.

IOC, doing their best to utterly ruin what is left of the Olympic spirit. Only the stellar performances on the snow and ice by athletes is what keeps worth watching

Inept, incompetent and corrupt. This, the Prada snowboard fiasco, the list goes on.

A fitting in to a joke of situation. Who told her to take a dive, so Russia could save some face?

I would be crying to if the adults I trusted told me to take drugs then after getting caught ask me to take a dive to save everybody's neck.

The Russian team's competition gold will later be awarded to the Americans.

At least Kaori Sakamoto was able to fully enjoy receiving her well deserved and fairly won medal on the podium!

I have no sympathy for cheats, but I do have sympathy for a young girl who was abused by a rotten system she had no control over. Her fellow skaters who placed and the coach they shared should be examined under a microscope. Also, even though the other skaters may not test positive this time for PED, they should be monitored daily because of the “W” effect of performance enhancing drugs being visible one day but not the next.

I’m not happy for any of those Russians. They cheat where they can.

I hear you. I'm not against the athletes themselves. They have great hopes and intentions. I've stopped focusing on medals and politics that have plagued this and former Olympics (Bach well included in this). Too much pressure on these individual athletes. Yes, Russia is and has been cheating, but this is totally intolerable. It's like being stopped by customs for brining marijuana, but declaring it's some thing else, only later to be excused. That's exactly what's been going on with Russia.

On the positive side, these athletes have been a joy to watch with their performances. I could care less about medals and just watch them on their merits. Great for the athletes on their performances. Not the same for the Olympic Committee, China, and Russia.

The Russian coach should be held responsible & banned from coaching.

The way she treats these young girls is borderline child abuse

https://slate.com/culture/2022/02/kamila-valieva-coach-eteri-tutberidze-abuse-russia-doping.html

The Olympics sinks to a new low. Watching a child have a nervous breakdown on ice was something I hope never to see again. This grotesque excuse for "sport" should be ended once and for all. It's evil.

I use to love the Olympics. But with Bach in charge, it's a big joke now.

*Shcherbakova landed both of her quads to finish with 255.95 points, edging out another teammate, Alexandra Trusova, who landed five somewhat shaky quads of her own. Trusova finished four points back in second place but wasn't pleased with the judges, especially given the difficulty of her program.*

What does this fool of a reporter mean by shaky quads. Out of the 5 quads that she executed

she did not land well in only one quad but then she didn't fall or touch the ice with her hands.

Where is the consistency, why the double standards, Hanyu executes one quad axel and falls miserably

and doesn't lose points and is lauded for being the first human to attempt a quad axel in a competitive match.

While Trusova executes 5 quads a number that even some male skaters don't execute and is looked as ordinary.

The message they are telling the skaters is not to take the risk of doing anything difficult as even if they succeed they won't beat those that didn't attempt anything extraordinary.

Will Skating ever going to cleanse itself of the controversial judging, I don't think it will.

https://slate.com/culture/2022/02/kamila-valieva-coach-eteri-tutberidze-abuse-russia-doping.html

Geez, gutter journalism.

The whole article smacks of jealousy against a successful coach, if you can't

match on the ice resort to smear campaign.

That appalling global display of mental anguish of a vulnerable 15 year old girl is the very definition of “irreparable harm”.

Failure to provide a duty of care on every level. IOC, Court of Arbitration for Sport, especially puppet master abuser Eteri Tutberidze.

Human rights, integrity just two Olympic values that were cynically callously thrown under a tram.

Kamila Valieva human right not be subjected to televised media circus, was shamefully brushed aside.

“I don't have the big jumps as others would have, which is a big handicap,” said Sakamoto, who doesn't have a four-rotation quad in her arsenal but hit the cleanest triple axel of the Olympics. “That means I had to have perfect elements.”

Didn't know it was a competition for who lands the cleanest triple, double toe loop, quad toe loop-triple toe loop etc. I thought The Associated Press had some class, how wrong was I.

Yes, it was really heart-wrenching to watch, poor thing, but Valieva still showed elements of her awesome power and ability. Being born with talent must be a curse sometimes. I am sorry that they, all of them, forced her to compete under the spotlights and the eyes of the world.

Gold and silver went to young immature girls with sticklike bodies, physically able to spin more easily, apparently.

Sakamoto Kaori's fluid act was poetry in motion, a pleasure to watch.

Valieva has claimed the drug triggering her positive, trimetazidine, entered her system by accident. But the World Anti-Doping Agency filed a brief stating that two other substances she acknowledged taking, L-carnitine and Hypoxen — though both legal — undercut the argument that a banned substance could have been ingested in error.

“You use all of that to increase performance,” U.S. Anti-Doping Agency CEO Travis Tygart said.

The worrying thing is that despite due process not being followed some people in the inner cycle of WADA and IOC are leaking information to the media and the media is releasing the details to the public and as expected juicing the story to strengthen what ever agenda they have and just because the New York times says it doesn't mean it is true. All they are doing is trying to shape public opinion and as expected so many are falling for it. Why is nobody asking WADA about why it took them more than a month and a half to test Valieva's A sample and why did they wait after the group skating competition was concluded which the ROC won before announcing the bombshell news, secondly why was this 15 year old name released to the whole world for ridiculing when WADA itself that makes the rules had not followed due process and confirm with the B sample. If it turns out that Valieva is negative, who is going to take the responsibility of causing irreversible mental damage to a 15 year old. Due process has not been followed to establish her guilt and until then she is clean. What happened to innocent until proven guilty. What a shame some posters here have already declared this kid a cheat just from the information they read from the media, yea, the trustworthy media, that is nothing but a messenger to the master. How is Russia's invasion of Ukraine which is in the 3rd day going on ?

The allegations/questions of abusive coaching practices methods have been clear in gymnastics since Olga Korbut, Nadia Comăneci.

So there are no excuses to justify these practices continue unablated under the guise of jealousy against a successful coach.

What came first the coach or abuser, and the motivation for such behaviour?

I suggest Eteri Tutberidze own personal greed and ambition above all else!

These conveyor belt revolving door kids/children are nothing more than a means for Eteri Tutberidze determination to be seen in skating world as the coach of coaches.

You don't have to hit home runs all the time to win at baseball. Strategic gameplay, perfecting your other skills, catching, running, bunting, pitching, sliding etc are just as important. Combine them and you still have a shot. Good job to Sakamoto and others who hone in perfecting an all around skate for a clean performance.

Many be the age limit is not the answer but review of the use of puberty blockers?

The allegations/questions of abusive coaching practices methods have been clear in gymnastics since Olga Korbut, Nadia Comăneci.

So there are no excuses to justify these practices continue unablated under the guise of jealousy against a successful coach.

What came first the coach or abuser, and the motivation for such behaviour?

I suggest Eteri Tutberidze own personal greed and ambition above all else!

These conveyor belt revolving door kids/children are nothing more than a means for Eteri Tutberidze determination to be seen in skating world as the coach of coaches.

Allegations are just what they are unfounded allegations.

She is a successful coach and other coaches are plain jealous of her success.

She is having her girls perform at higher heights which they are doing and she is called

abusive by those who are plain jealous they cannot train their skaters to perform. Skating

like any other sport is evolving, most successful coaches in any sport are strict and that doesn't

mean they are abusive. I guess someday we will hear that Pep Guardiola or Jurgen Klopp was abusive.

High school baseball coaches or even pro baseball coaches put their players through long hours

of stringent practice and they are never called abusive. In the fashion industry, models have suffered

from anorexia due to the demand to maintain a very low weight yet nobody calls the fashion industry

abusive.

She is not the one that set the age for skaters to perform in the olympics the ISU did.

A 13 year old kid participated in snowboard even in the summer olympics and nobody complained

she was too young. When a child in a 3rd world goes out hawking stuff to help the family it is called

child labor but when a child is forced to make money as model or perform in a kabuki it isn't child labor.

Well I guess it is beauty to the eye of the beholder. You are free to allow some writer or media decide your thought process, sorry not me.

Many be the age limit is not the answer but review of the use of puberty blockers?

Any proof that they are using puberty blockers ?

Hope you won't quote an article written in some paper.

The Olympics sinks to a new low. Watching a child have a nervous breakdown on ice was something I hope never to see again. This grotesque excuse for "sport" should be ended once and for all. It's evil.

I've lost interest in watching now, I don't wanna see this.

I don't watch the Olympics but when I saw Kamila on YouTube once while searching for videos on beginners ice skating I thought I'd like to see her perform at the Olympics. Was still thinking of watching the rerun before this news article

Gold and silver went to young immature girls with sticklike bodies, physically able to spin more easily, apparently.

Ridiculous, was spinning the only criteria used to determine the results. ?

It is obvious that if Manabe Kawabe who is 17 had won a medal you won't have

made that ridiculous statement.

Experience: I took hormone-blockers to become an ice-skating champion

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/mar/20/experience-i-took-hormone-blockers-to-become-an-ice-skating-champion

The Eteri Expiration Date: Kamila Valieva and Russia's quest for figure skating gold

https://www.businessinsider.com/the-revered-but-controversial-coach-who-could-make-olympic-history-2022-2

There is no short cuts, drlucifer, every success in life, business, let alone sport come at a price.

The difference is Eteri Tutberidze, her failures as a skater, and later as a ice dancer, brought this 2022 Olympic figure skating event to the ignominy, for the media hyenas to paw over

The price Tutberidze proteges are now being required to pay.

The torches are meant to serve as holdover gifts while the world awaits the resolution of Valieva’s doping case.

I bet that the gold medal will be handed to the American team, wonder whether they will really celebrate

a stolen medal. I sure they will and the media will do just that to remind us how the Russian won it illegally

like as if they tested positive after the event as winners of the gold medal. It is easy to shed off a stereotype

when it is your own like the Balco lab case, Lance Armstrong, Marion Jones etc

Experience: I took hormone-blockers to become an ice-skating champion

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/mar/20/experience-i-took-hormone-blockers-to-become-an-ice-skating-champion

The Eteri Expiration Date: Kamila Valieva and Russia's quest for figure skating gold

https://www.businessinsider.com/the-revered-but-controversial-coach-who-could-make-olympic-history-2022-2

Yeah, I was also given steroids when I was a young and promising football player

and it damaged my career.

I am sure you believe me.

drlucifer, I understand and believe you.

I am not going to make any assumptions as to Kamila Valieva positive drugs test that will be the subject of a future independent process.

The circumstances that led to how and why Kamila Valieva emotional breakdown in front of a global audience, the role and culpability of Eteri Tutberidze has and must be investigated.

So that horror show never happens again.

What bothers me is that kids allowed to participate in professional sports events. Professional sport is physically and emotionally traumatic.

Whatever happens i hope she can bounce back and participate next winter Olympics.

Heartbroken for Kamila Valieva, so much pressure on a 15 y/o girl.

Happy for Kaori Sakamoto, but we all know had KV landed all her jumps KS wouldn't get the medal. Sheer luck.