For me, the one thing I keep thinking in this whole debate is "where is the line?" Skaters were still developing chronic injuries when triples were the norm to win. Kwan talked about how it was easier for her to skate than to walk, and that she had to sit in a bath for hours because of her hip pain. Lipinski got hip replacement surgery. I've known people who had to stop skating because of injuries sustained doing doubles.
The argument you're going to get here in return is that it's all coming at a higher ratio from one camp. But people refuse to understand that Tutberidze skaters take up the majority of whatever 'top' or 'seasons best' list that you want to look at. If we applied the same ratio of injured skaters in a season across that same 'top' list across the world throughout many of the last 25 or so years, we'd probably find the same amount of (serious) injuries from top-level skaters. And, as you mentioned, this was when skaters were doing much lesser content.
I'm no huge 'fan' of Tutberidze as a coach, but I'm also not going to be ridiculous and equate a fluke fall to eating disorders or anything else that we don't know about but some are so eager to assume. Nathan Chen injured himself on a
triple toe in an exhibition 2016 that took him right out of the end of the season, missing Worlds, because of a serious hip injury. We saw what happened to Mae Meite at Worlds. These things do happen, and sometimes in front of thousands of people.
You have a Canadian skating club that had a top female skater have an eating disorder and several injuries (in which she came back to the same club), two top male skaters with on-and-off injuries, and I don't see anyone ever questioning any of that even though those are 3 of the top skaters in the camp. People might be rolling their eyes at Hanyu for his quest to land the quad Axel, but it's his decision.
Any type of physical activity required for elite sports is going to create this problem of injuries, injuries cutting careers short, causing early retirements. Again, what is the line? How universal is this line? And then, can you really stop a determined athlete from choosing to chase glory at the cost of their health?
You can't stop someone from being motivated or for pushing harder. And this board, always trying to be constantly socially aware, shouldn't need told that point IMO. Even if you've never stepped foot in a gym, never ran a mile, never did any strenuous physical activity, I'm sure you've worked very, very hard for something that may have resulted in burnout and/or taking a spot over someone else who tried just as hard. Unless people here really want to argue that the physical side is weighted more heavily than the mental side. Either way, we've all been in a position where we had to stand out or 'do better' to get to where we wanted to be.
Ultimately, this is societal and cultural, not just an issue in figure skating. In that respect, we are all to blame. I happily purchase tickets to watch athletes perform insane technical elements like quads. Some of them are minors. Is the entire audience to blame? Are we all part of the problem? I think about how celebrated Tursynbaeva's Quad Salchow was by her competitors. Are they also to blame for her retirement and chronic injuries?
People were just recently excited by Sui/Han re-adding the quad twist to their programs. Sui doing a 3T+3T in practice gets people excited. There may very well be people who truly want quads, triple-triples, and even triples gone. But like you said, plenty of people have gotten injured attempting doubles. Plenty of people have gotten seriously injured and/or have had long-term exercise-related issues from so many other things.
Tennis requires players to run back and forth for at least an hour, maybe even 3 or 4 hours per match, often sliding, twisting awkwardly, getting stuck when trying to twist, etc. Baseball starting pitchers throw 100 pitches per game, not even including practice days. Catchers have to be in a constant squat position and they all end up with bad knees. Swimmers get something called swimmers shoulder. These are not contact sports. They are not even extreme sports. It's just what comes with exercise in general. And I don't think athletes need told the risk of all of it.
But we can keep on with people, on a board of hardcore figure skating fans, really trying to act like they want all types of exercise to go away because it's not safe.
do that for the men too at least right
