Kostornaia out of Russian Nationals

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layman

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Poor Eteri, everyone's so mean to her! :rolleyes:

Of course injuries happen to skaters and coaching teams of all nationalities.

But the shelf life of a Tutberidze skater doesn't extend past the age of 18.

HALF her senior skaters have had a severe injury this season, 2 have had season-ending injuries. This isn't normal.

Fortunately for Eteri, she can afford to push these kids to do well-documented insane reps or really drill the ultra cs because she has an unlimited number of skaters from which to choose. 3 skaters go down in an Olympic season? No worries, there are still 3 non-injured skaters available!

And guess what? She's dominating the sport, immature ass Gleikhengauz's hideous cut and paste choreography is now hailed as the gold standard in women's figure skating, and her team still has an excellent chance to sweep the Olympics podium. They're certainly being well-rewarded for their assembly line approach to figure skating.

But I don't have to like it, I don't have to pretend to enjoy it, and fans are well within in their right to call these things out. And since there seems to be the charming habit here of labelling anyone who criticizes the Tutberidze school as a bitter American xenophobe, let me say I would feel the exact same if this was an American coach and American skaters. And I've always preferred Russian ladies skating over the Americans since the late 90s, as my avatar choices over the years easily prove. :p
Was it Zhulin who a few seasons ago described the Eteri school as the "Disposable Cups" school of figure skating (this was long before he and Eteri teamed up to boost her daughter's prospects) or was that Arutunian who said that (or maybe both of them said that)...anyway they were right. The Eteri School is the Graveyard of Russian Figure Skating.

The Eteri school may think they have an unlimited supply of girls (to use and discard) but at the rate they are burning through them, there won't be anyone healthy to make it to the Olympic Games (let alone sweep).

I am so sick of Eteri's army of enablers and yes-people condoning and colluding with her abuse. How many broken, disabled, career-prematurely ended athletes is it going to take before the Russian Fed put a stop to her? When will they realize that she's not helping Russia's chances at this (or future) games, but ruining them?
 
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muffinplus

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Not at all. Just that instead of starving theses girls till the age of 15-16 they will be starving till the age of 20. Who cares?
If they are really starving themselves, I doubt they will even make it to 20. :rolleyes: Who are “these girls”. Are we now just assuming everyone is ”starving” ?
 

muffinplus

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There are a surprising (not really lol) number of people on this board who support systematic abuse of children and young adults as long as it gets results.
There is also a surprising (not really lol) number of drama queen posts which assume every time someone training under a certain coach is injured, it’s automatically abuse, and which also assume someone disagreeing with is automatically in support of abuse. It’s like when someone called me a “Sexual abuse apologist” when I simply asked what evidence there was of Katslapov abusing Sinitsina other than twitter (well that’s a whole other can of worms). Anyways will see myself out…cos it’s always the same in these threads… have a nice day.
 
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bladesofgorey

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There is also a surprising (not really) number of drama queen posts when think every time someone training under a certain coach someone is injured it’s automatically abuse and which also assume someone disagreeing with is automatically in support of abuse. It’s like when someone called me a “Sexual abuse apologist” when I simply asked what evidence there was of Katslapov abusing other than twitter (well that’s a whole other can of worms). Anyways will see myself out…cos it’s always the same in these threads… have a nice day.
That's not the abuse I am talking about in this camp. There are years of documented evidence (including their own recent interviews) of them withholding food and water from their young skaters and setting up a daily punishment and reward system for skaters based on daily weigh-ins and eating habits. Bones heal but the brain when it's been conditioned from an early age like this often does not. But yeah I'm a drama queen.
 

Mayra

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But let's face it considering where she has been psychologically this was bound to happen, not so? Why not give her programs that show off her artistry ala Jason Brown? She's got all these natural gifts and they're not using them. It's a disservice to the student and the FS community. It's a straight jacket approach to coaching IMHO.
To be fair to Gleikhengauz, I think he's there to put together COP programs that maximize points. As far as I can see, he doesn't seem to have the propensity/ capability to produce nuanced choreography ala Rohen Ward, nor the musicality. He has a formula and sticks to that.

I think Kostornaia received as good a program as this team was capable of. :slinkaway
 

Wyliefan

Ubering juniors against my will
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If they are really starving themselves, I doubt they will even make it to 20. :rolleyes: Who are “these girls”. Are we now just assuming everyone is ”starving” ?
The evidence, including quotes from Eteri and her team and the skaters themselves, has been presented multiple times. Some of you just shut your eyes and put your fingers in your ears and sing "LA LA LA LA LA" really loudly so you don't have to deal with it.
 
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VGThuy

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I actually don't doubt that Eteri will have at least one skater past the age 20 that will do well. There will always be exceptions to the rule and Eteri's camp seems to be improving what they're teaching their students in terms of technique and jump quality with every generation. That doesn't excuse the trail of destruction prior and other bad behavior that may continue even with better jump and skating technique being taught.
 

muffinplus

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The evidence, including quotes from Eteri and her team and the skaters themselves, has been presented multiple times. Some of you just shut your eyes and put your fingers in your ears and sing "LA LA LA LA LA" really loudly so you don't have to deal with it.
You confuse evidence with interpretation. Like I said no interest in rehashing this as it's got nothing to do with this injury
 

Trillian

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There are a surprising (not really lol) number of people on this board who support systematic abuse of children and young adults as long as it gets results.

Agreed.

The conversation doesn’t have to be about a single coach. There are too many children and young adults destroying their bodies in figure skating, period, and we should ask questions every time it happens. We should be having this conversation at every level of the sport all over the world. But at the same time, any coaching team with a parade of broken kids - literal children - hobbling out of the rink every year has earned some extra scrutiny. Anytime there’s a pattern like that, we should be asking what needs to be done to prevent it. And that is going to involve holding individuals accountable along with a broader examination of what we consider acceptable in the sport as a whole.

I’ve been watching skating since I was a kid. For a long time the skaters were all about the same age as me, and it was a lot easier to watch. But it’s been 30 years and that’s a lot of shiny new 15 year olds I’ve watched crash and burn. Maybe I’m too old for this now, but on the other hand, maybe the adults watching - and especially the ones directly involved in the sport - need to start calling this what it is.
 

MacMadame

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The judges.
The judges are judging the elements for the most part and the choreography mark isn't about the choreo per se but also about how the skater performs it. If those programs were the "gold standard" then Jason Brown wouldn't score as high as he does.
 

tony

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Injuries and having long-lasting problems after sport is far from exclusive in figure skating and I read some of these 'I'm so concerned' posts as people only looking inside the bubble of skating and acting like this doesn't happen from just about every other physical higher-intensity activity there is. People want the age limit raised as if that's going to fix problems. Long before triple Axels and quads were a thing, injuries still played a part of the sport. We all know the physics behind the force being put on the body to even do double or easier triples jumps. So raise the age, remove quads and triple Axels from being allowed in junior, and are we also going to police every ice rink around the world to make sure these ambitious young skaters aren't practicing the jumps in their free time? It's not going to happen. They are still going to push themselves to get to the next level.

Kids can be stars in soccer, baseball, basketball, football, hockey, skateboarding, gymnastics, whatever. The risk for injury is going to be there no matter the content level. You can break a bone or pull a muscle or whatever simply running down the street or lifting some amount of weight that you've lifted successfully many times before.

And in this imaginary world that quads and 3A practices go away and injuries still continue to happen, are we going to have a brigade insisting that 3T and 3S also need to go away because it's just ruining athletes' bodies too much? I don't know what sport some of you want, but based on the bitching of the technical level of events like 2010 Worlds, I would assume going in the opposite direction isn't really what you want to happen.
 

soogar

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You had me until you used "ultra c" :rofl:

Just kidding...sort of. But I totally agree, and Tom Z (apologies i have no idea where to even start spelling that name) rightfully came under scrutiny when he was being very questionable towards his injured skaters.
Tom Z receives a lot of hate, as well as many American gymnastics coaches who push their athletes to injury.
 

VGThuy

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Of course every sport will have risk of injury but let's not pretend that people won't have comments when there are seemingly shorter careers and much more injuries coming from one camp over another. And this isn't just Eteri. When there seems to be a trend of much more injuries then people will comment. Usually where there's smoke, there's fire. In gymnastics, a highly dangerous sport, injuries happen but there are gyms that are notorious for much more dangerous training methods and careless coaching than others.

I think dismissing all injuries and rates of injuries without more information from at least more research or investigation due to nature of sport is too simplistic. If anything, sports should always look into safer avenues. That's just common sense.
 

tony

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Of course every sport will have risk of injury but let's not pretend that people won't have comments when there are seemingly shorter careers and much more injuries coming from one camp over another. And this isn't just Eteri. In gymnastics, a highly dangerous sport, injuries happen but there are gyms that are notorious for much more dangerous training methods and careless coaching than others.
People have comments all the time but they look very narrowly into one camp. How many skaters have been stars at the junior level all across the board and then fizzled out from injury or having to relearn technique (that led to injury) or burnout in general across the world? Almost every top skater in the 90s went through some kind of big injury and no one was trying 'harder' elements. The reason it's such big news all the time with Tutberidze is because she has (a lot of) skaters at the top of the sport. But when it happens lower down in the ranks or when it happens once or twice in a small camp of 3 skaters total, no one ever seems to think twice about it.

Tutberidze skaters are advanced technically and they hit the majority of the time. Bottom line on this one is that Kostornaia fell and broke her wrist on a triple Axel (if people choose to believe her own words)--- a jump she's done many times before. In this specific instance, those are the details to the story. She wasn't trying some crazy thing she can't do.

So my question is whether the skaters shouldn't be able to even practice jumps they've landed successfully many times. And if the 3A and quads are getting removed, what about the developing skaters who are just learning triples and falling face first? I just don't know where people expect 'trying new things' to have a limit.
 

Trillian

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Kids can be stars in soccer, baseball, basketball, football, hockey, skateboarding, gymnastics, whatever. The risk for injury is going to be there no matter the content level.

Maybe kids shouldn’t be professional athletes, ever. Raise the Olympic minimum for all sports to 17 or 18, don’t broadcast children’s sporting events on television. This is a problem that extends way, way beyond figure skating, but skating does have a higher percentage of children than most sports competing at an elite level. Every single sport with a pattern of seriously injured children - anything more than just the occasional fluke injury - deserves scrutiny.

The jumps are obviously not the only problem and I’m not even sure they’re the biggest problem. Rampant disordered eating and overtraining are probably the biggest underlying issues. Just because it’s been a problem forever doesn’t mean we have to keep accepting it forever.
 

tony

Throwing the (rule)book at them
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17,679
Maybe kids shouldn’t be professional athletes, ever. Raise the Olympic minimum for all sports to 17 or 18, don’t broadcast children’s sporting events on television. This is a problem that extends way, way beyond figure skating, but skating does have a higher percentage of children than most sports competing at an elite level. Every single sport with a pattern of seriously injured children - anything more than just the occasional fluke injury - deserves scrutiny.

The jumps are obviously not the only problem and I’m not even sure they’re the biggest problem. Rampant disordered eating and overtraining are probably the biggest underlying issues. Just because it’s been a problem forever doesn’t mean we have to keep accepting it forever.
Then kids shouldn't be actors, they shouldn't excel at music or musical performance, they shouldn't have hobbies of any kind that put them in any kind of pressure or chance to set them apart as 'better' because the mental game can be and has shown to be just as devastating (if not more) as having a career-ending injury.

And once again, what is raising the age going to do? Are you going to police all of the rinks and watch what they are attempting in practice? Or for any sport really? You think 17 and 18 year olds are going to show up to compete in a sport having never learned anything prior to that? Come on.
 

VGThuy

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People have comments all the time but they look very narrowly into one camp. How many skaters have been stars at the junior level all across the board and then fizzled out from injury or having to relearn technique (that led to injury) or burnout in general across the world? Almost every top skater in the 90s went through some kind of big injury and no one was trying 'harder' elements. The reason it's such big news all the time with Tutberidze is because she has (a lot of) skaters at the top of the sport. But when it happens lower down in the ranks or when it happens once or twice in a small camp of 3 skaters total, no one ever seems to think twice about it.

Tutberidze skaters are advanced technically and they hit the majority of the time. Bottom line on this one is that Kostornaia fell and broke her wrist on a triple Axel (if people choose to believe her own words)--- a jump she's done many times before. In this specific instance, those are the details to the story. She wasn't trying some crazy thing she can't do.

So my question is whether the skaters shouldn't be able to even practice jumps they've landed successfully many times. And if the 3A and quads are getting removed, what about the developing skaters who are just learning triples and falling face first? I just don't know where people expect 'trying new things' to have a limit.
Again, I think you're taking an issue with how simplistic people are criticizing one camp but your post is offering an equally simplistic alternative of just accepting major injuries as a fact of life and leaving things the way they are. I think there are many alternatives in-between and it'll require research and data collecting. I think the onus is always on the official sports institution to discover new ways to make their sports safer for its participants. Many are already doing it because they are afraid of liability issues like the NFL and their concussion issues, etc.

You can't help participants who will be overzealous and go against best training practices, but that will always be a risk. This about making sure those in charge know best practices and implement them for the majority. Many sports are dangerous and there will be inherent risks, but I also think many sports also put resources into improving it, with safety being one aspect that they look into or at least they are starting to all things considered.

My opinion is that when one camp shows signs of being a training center that has more career-ending injuries for their senior competitors at higher rates and younger ages than what fans are used to, it wouldn't hurt to look into it more and look into the overall field to see if other camps are also having similar rates of injuries for young competitors whose careers are cut short because of injury and see what can be done, if anything.
 
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