End of 15-year-old Walijewa’s career close? “Nobody wants to experience trauma”

15-year-old Kamila Walijewa won Olympic gold in a team competition with her colleagues from the Russian Olympic Committee. It was the first in the history of the Games to make a quadruple jump. After the competition it turned out that in December she had a positive anti-doping test result and her case will be investigated afterwards. The Arbitration Tribunal admitted her to further starts at the Olympics.

This week the Russian woman also has a chance to win gold among soloists. A short program takes place on Tuesday, and a free program is scheduled for Thursday. But this is not a story about the beginning of a long and beautiful career. This is a story about its inevitable end. The end that Walijewa does not decide. In this game the cards are played by someone else.

Like at the factory

He is 48 years old, has a large group of outstanding pupils and an order from Vladimir Putin for special services for Russian sport. In her youth, Eteri Tutberidze was a skater herself, but her career was interrupted by an injury. She studied choreography at the Moscow Academy of Physical Education, then left for the USA, where she first danced on ice and then started training. She gained publicity while working for the Moscow Sambo 70 club.

He has been working with the Russian team, Tutberidze, since 2013, when the domination of the US skaters ended, and the Russian women began to vote. When in 2018 the 12-year-old Walijewa was taken over by her, the factory was already operating at high speed.

High and multiple, I should add. Tutberiga releases new young champions on the pane, who win the competition thanks to the most difficult, best scored jumps. Also quadruple, for which Walijewa became famous at the Olympics. “Girls should learn the most demanding jumps at a young age, when they are still light and agile,” repeats Tutberidze. And he explains that young teens have the perfect strength-to-weight ratio to exercise more and more effectively.

However, many people believe that it is training for the exhaustion of the organism. – I’m afraid these girls won’t last long. It’s good to win medals, but no one wants to be traumatized for the rest of their lives, said Surya Bonaly, former French champion.

Controversial training methods

Tutberidze has been closely monitored for many years by the skating community due to its training methods. Among critics of her style of work are even prominent Russian coaches who describe the Tutberidze players as “disposable” or “perishable goods”. Similar terms can be multiplied: “trading health for medals” or “Eteri expiry date” are another of them. The latter is even quite precisely defined – there are examples of skaters which, due to injuries and the resulting worse results, retire at the age of 17.

Frenchman Benoit Richaud, a leading figure skating choreographer and former ice dancer, believes that Tutberidze’s skater careers are cut short by excessive pressure to compete at a young age. – Eteri was smart about her approach: she was the first to find a way to teach girls the most difficult jumps. This method works, but only until the age of 17. What are the ice skaters to do next? – he asks.

Clench your teeth and jump on, or let go. Already during the games there has been speculation that two of the three Tutberidze players in Beijing have undefined injuries that may be caused by overtraining. Apart from Walijewa, the team includes 17-year-old Anna Scherbakowa and Aleksandra Trusowa. Two other girls stayed in Russia because they had recently suffered injuries preventing them from qualifying for the Olympics. Another skater, 15-year-old Daria Usacheva, suffered such a serious hip injury during the warm-up in November that she returned to Moscow in a wheelchair and withdrew from further competition.

The list of Eteri Tutberidze players who have or have had health problems is long and painful:

• Jullija Lipnicka (Olympic champion in the team from Sochi 2014, due to an injury and anorexia, she ended her career at the age of 19)
• Polina Curskaja (gold medalist of the 2016 Youth Olympics, ended her career at the age of 17 due to numerous injuries)
• Daria Panenkowa (gold and silver medalist of Junior Grand Prix 2017, ended her career at the age of 17)
• Yevgeny Medvedev (Olympic vice-champion in the competition between soloists and in the team from Pyongyang 2018, has not competed for three years due to a chronic back injury)
• Alina Zagitowa (2018 Olympics champion among soloists, has not competed for three years, claims that she could not drink water at the Olympics to maintain a low weight)
• Daria Usaczewa (2020 junior world vice-champion, a 15-year-old hip injury a year ago, has not started since then).

Will Walijewa become the next victim of the Tutberidze training regime? It is still an open matter.

Jane Moran, head of the Medical Committee of the International Ice Union, believes that Usacheva’s injury results from the accumulation of stress in the hip joint and results from too hard training, too many repetitions. Moran argues that this is a typical trauma for ice skaters in adolescence when their body changes. – Teenagers’ training must be adapted to the stage of their development – he points out.

Tutberidze believes the opposite. Her winning strategy is based on teaching the youngest players the most difficult jumps possible. The effects, it must be admitted, are stunning – 19 out of the 20 best results of the soloists registered by the Ice Arena were achieved by the five contestants of the Russian Iron Lady. The question remains, however, about the cost of these successes.

Tutberiga is defending himself

Tutberidze dismisses accusations that strenuous training slows physical development. – When I read that we have slowed down someone’s growth process, I jokingly reply: “Give me this growth-inhibiting agent, I may use it myself.” Training loads limit your body formation, but they cannot stop it. It seems to me that all figure skaters are slightly shorter than they would be if they had not played sports. When we let them go on vacation, we never know who will come back to us. When there are fewer burdens, the body directs energy to growth, she explained in an interview with sport.ru.

The Russians praise the Iron Lady for her ability to search for talents and her unusual work ethic. “She can make the girls do things they didn’t know they could do,” says one of her co-workers, Waleri Prucki. “They’re like a stud of purebred horses that compete and push each other,” says Canadian ice skating activist Ted Barton.

The divided environment will now be further divided and radicalized in judgments by the issue of doping in Walijewa. Before the Beijing Olympics, none of the Tutberidze players had tested positive for doping tests – despite the fact that they are tested more than other athletes. This is a consequence of their numerous successes and the rich history of Russian doping.

There is no doubt that the Iron Lady will find herself – and has even already found herself – in the eye of the storm. Regardless of what the defense will be, it is hard to believe that Walijewa chose the banned substances herself. The more so as her staff includes, among others, Filipp Szwecki, who was suspended several years ago for violating anti-doping regulations.

First of all, it is hard to believe that something could have happened in the Tutberidze factory, which was focused on success, without her knowledge.