Everything else aside....as I did not see anything else on video and nonsense was spouted on both sides.
1) clean and clear video of 24yr old woman with yrs of competition experience skates up behind 16yr girl in her first worlds and kicks her leg with her skate and keeps skating on without stopping.
2) clean and clear video of 16 yr old Eunsoo coming off the ice after she competed. 50 something Raf turns his head to stare at nothing and shoves his hand out with the skate guards in them.
3) 50 something Raf sits beside 16yr old in kiss n cry and completely ignores her. She had skated really well.
Students are not cash cows...They are children and someone was paying for his support which they did not receive.
Barbarafan - I often agree withyour posts. I don’t agree with this one or with your characterization of the events or the people involved.
When I started skating on freestyle sessions - and mind you I’m a far less accomplished or experienced skater than either Mariah or Eunsoo - I learned, before I ever set foot on the ice, that there are right of way rules designed to keep people safe, and that sometimes, even if people try their best to follow those rules, accidents happen.
Based on the way you characterize what you saw on the video, I would guess you don’t skate, or at least, not on freestyle sessions.
What I saw - as a skater - was not a deliberate attack by Mariah on Eunsoo and wanton disregard of the consequences, but a skater focused on running her program (which gives her the right of way) who accidentally and without realizing it grazed another skater’s leg. Whether or not Eunsoo was paying as much attention to the other skaters as she should have been - and it looks to me like she probably wasn’t - what happened to her was an accident - which is what the ISU found when they looked at the video.
I also want to say that the age difference between Mariah and Eunsoo - which you made much of - is irrelevant in this context.
Eunsoo is an experienced international competitor. This was not her first international event. It wasn’t her first senior level event. It wasn’t even her first senior level championship event, since she had just competed at 4CCs. Besides that, last season she also competed at two Grand Prix events and two Challengers; she was also on the Junior Grand Prix circuit for two seasons and competed at Junior Worlds twice.
Given that she’s clearly got substantial experience skating on official practice sessions in international competitions, I don’t think it’s accurate to characterize her as an inexperienced child at Worlds who needed extra protection, consideration, and guidance at that practice session.
Finally, with respect to Raf, the reason I mentioned the awkward moments in the kiss n cry is precisely because they were surprising.
As I said, I am not blaming Eunsoo for the way things spiraled out of control. But without knowing what happened off-ice between Raf, Eunsoo, her parents, and her management before she competed, I don’t think it’s fair to blame him. For all we know, her parents or management could have yelled at him, told him he was forbidden to touch or speak to her, etc. And without knowing, I think it’s a mistake to assume he had bad intentions or that he ever thought of her as a cash cow.
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