“I hate this sport!”
The eruption on the verge of the Valiyeva tragedy
2/18/2022 8:02 am
All eyes are on Kamila Valiyeva in the figure skating competition, so a violent outburst from her teammate is almost lost: Alexandra Trusowa is so disappointed with her silver medal that she scolds her own sport.
The great, sad story of the individual Olympic figure skating competition was, of course, written by Kamila Valiyeva. The 15-year-old first wowed the world with a great run in the team competition and then, when the doping hype had already erupted around her, also put herself on course for gold with an impressive performance in the short program. And then, with her completely botched freestyle, she made a tragedy out of her long-poisoned fairy tale. But on the fringes of the Valiyeva drama, a competitor and teammate also caused a violent outburst of emotion.
The Russian Alexandra Trusowa felt that the judges had robbed her of a possible gold medal after the Olympic women’s freestyle. “I hate this sport. I will never go on the ice again,” the 17-year-old Russian figure skater shouted angrily at the edge of the ice ring. “Everyone has a gold medal, just not me. Everyone knew about it!” Despite five quadruple jumps, she was only awarded silver. “It’s impossible. That’s the way it should be now.” The 17-year-old impressed with a rapid freestyle and was rewarded by the judges with the best value of the day. But because she had previously shown a rather disappointing performance in the short program, she was 4.22 points short of the gold medal.
“…so I cried”
Trusowa is the first figure skater in Olympic history to perform five quadruple jumps in a free skate. Her training partner Anna Shcherbakova became Olympic champion. After the doping whirlwind of the past few days, Kamila Valiewa finished fourth behind the Japanese bronze medalist Kaori Sakamoto. Trusowa later explained her outburst as very emotional and answered questions about whether she was serious: “We’ll see.” She defiantly refused to start at the World Championships in Montpellier in March. “We’ll see,” Trusowa said again.
“I’m happy to have made the five quadruples but upset with the result,” Trusowa said at the medalists’ press conference. “I haven’t won a major competition in three years. I’m always trying to achieve a goal, I’m always adding more foursomes,” said the 17-year-old. “And when I did that, I thought I was going to win. That didn’t happen, that’s why I was so angry.” When asked why she cried, Trusowa replied, “Just like that. I wanted to cry, so I cried. I was alone for three weeks, without my mother, without my dogs. So I cry.”