Minimal ages for determine skaters? Some on the Beijing Olympics say it's a good suggestion

Minimal ages for determine skaters? Some on the Beijing Olympics say it's a good suggestion

Russia’s Kamila Valieva reacts after competing within the girls’s single skating brief program on the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Video games.

Manan Vatsyayana/AFP through Getty Photographs

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Manan Vatsyayana/AFP through Getty Photographs

Russia’s Kamila Valieva reacts after competing within the girls’s single skating brief program on the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Video games.

Manan Vatsyayana/AFP through Getty Photographs

BEIJING — Russian determine skater Kamila Valieva completed her brief program routine this week and promptly burst into tears. After skating off the ice, the emotional Valieva grabbed a stuffed animal her coach handed her and waited to be judged. She ended this system in first place.

For days main as much as her occasion, the 15-year-old skater confronted intense scrutiny after a pre-Video games doping violation got here to mild. The gold-medal contender continues to be allowed to compete on the girls’s determine skating ultimate on Thursday regardless of this violation.

Valieva takes No. 1 slot in a figure skating event that's clouded by doping saga

Valieva’s continued participation within the Video games has been met with harsh criticism — however even a few of these critics say that in the end the teenager does not bear all the blame right here. At such a younger age, Valieva is being guided by a crew of adults — officers and coaches that make choices for her.

Former Olympic determine skater Adam Rippon lately criticized Valieva’s crew. Rippon coaches U.S. determine skater Mariah Bell.

“Valieva is 15. I doubt very a lot she knowingly doped. She’s a minor. The adults fully failed her,” he instructed NPR.

The Valieva scandal has led some within the determine skating neighborhood, together with present skaters and coaches, to resume requires greater age minimums for Olympic competitors.

Advocates of the thought say older skaters could be extra capable of advocate for themselves, have extra maturity to take care of intense stress, and would have a greater sense of when one thing wasn’t proper.

“This I fully agree with,” Bell mentioned Tuesday, after competing within the determine skating brief program.

Generally, the Worldwide Olympic Committee doesn’t set age limits for taking part within the Olympics — that is as much as the governing physique of every sport.

The Worldwide Skating Union has made 15 years previous the minimal competitors age in determine skating. The prospect of bumping the age greater has been debated on the ISU in recent times. Current stories point out one other proposal will probably be introduced earlier than the ISU later this 12 months.

Jackie Wong, a determine skating analyst for the web site Rocker Skating, mentioned there are a number of points to think about earlier than making sweeping modifications. He mentioned that in some methods, elevating the age minimal might be an excellent factor for the longevity of the game and its athletes.

Alternatively, he mentioned, if an athlete is at their greatest at 15, is it honest to penalize them?

It is value nothing that this debate is targeted on feminine skaters. Most male skaters do not peak as teenagers like younger girls do — partly as a result of their our bodies mature extra slowly, Wong mentioned.

Younger skaters communicate of challenges within the sport

The U.S.’s Mariah Bell skates in the course of the girls’s single skating brief program on day eleven of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Video games.

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The U.S.’s Mariah Bell skates in the course of the girls’s single skating brief program on day eleven of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Video games.

Matthew Stockman/Getty Photographs

The world of Olympic-level determine skating is awfully powerful on younger girls, prime U.S. skaters mentioned.

“It is exhausting sufficient for me, and I am 25. I do not know what it might be like if I used to be 10 years youthful,” Bell mentioned.

She thinks athletes solely 18 and older ought to carry out at this degree. Notably, her teammate, U.S. determine skater Alysa Liu, is simply 16.

Feminine athletes additionally take care of body-shaming in a means that male opponents do not. That may have a disastrous impact on self worth and psychological well being.

“It’s a actually massive concern in skating. I handled a whole lot of negativity two years in the past,” Liu instructed reporters. She was simply 14 then.

The U.S. has additionally seen main success with younger skaters in latest Video games. Liu is one. One other is Tara Lipinski, who gained an Olympic gold medal at simply 15, and Sarah Hughes, who additionally gained gold at 16.

In 2018, snowboarder Chloe Kim, then simply 17, shot to stardom after the Pyeongchang Olympics. Within the wake of profitable her first gold medal, she mentioned she struggled with the stress and suffered from despair. Kim, now 22, mentioned getting older has helped her higher navigate the eye and criticism.

Constructing a sport with athletic longevity

Nice Britain’s Natasha Mckay skates in the course of the girls’s brief program on the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Video games.

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Nice Britain’s Natasha Mckay skates in the course of the girls’s brief program on the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Video games.

Matthew Stockman/Getty Photographs

At simply 25, Bell is taken into account an elder of the game.

“I feel [raising the age minimum for competition] would promote that concept of longevity and any person being 25 would not be stunning,” she mentioned.

Natasha McKay, a 27-year-old skater from the U.Okay., is among the oldest opponents within the discipline of Olympic girls’s determine skaters.

“I did not get the jumps till I used to be a lot older,” she instructed reporters this week. “I used to be the odd one out. In a means I really feel it’s serving to me, as my legs are nonetheless going and I’ve not stopped competing but, although I’m 27 years previous.”

On the dialogue about elevating the age, she mentioned: “I do not see something improper with elevating the age, as our bodies will probably be extra developed and there will probably be much less harm, however no matter choice they make, they’ll make it.”

It is exhausting to standardize age restrictions in skating, based on Wong.

“Each physique grows up in a different way,” he mentioned. Growing the competitors age for ladies would probably assist the game in the long term.

Younger, teen skaters typically retire early because of harm or exhaustion.

Wong mentioned, “I might like to see extra skaters be capable of have a extra sustainable, long run profession slightly than folks peaking at a sure age and never attending to that time once more.”

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