Ekaterina Kurakowa was born in June 2002 in Moscow. In 2017, due to the very high competition among soloists in Russia, they enrolled in training at the Axel Toru club. Together with his parents, he expresses that he represents Poland. Kurakowa has been running under the white and red flag since 2019.
In 2022, Katia took fifth place at the European Championship. Never before has any Polish woman been so high. Now Katia was making her debut on.
After the short program, our 19-year-old was only 24. But in the group of 25 players who presented their free programs, it was great.
– Free program Katya went very nice, clean, without any errors. Unfortunately, there will be an error in the short program. Disputes, and therefore cost Kati a lot. Were it not for this error, she would get more points, she would be closer to people, and not at the very end of the group that would be promoted to the free program. And finally, it would have an even higher position – comments Anna Rechnio in an interview with Sport.pl.
“We admit that we exist thanks to it”
One of the best Polish figure skaters in history greatly appreciates the performance of Kurakowa.
It was clear that after such a free program Katya would be very much promoted. It is a very big plus that we are finally showing ourselves in the international arena. Of course, I regret that she is not a native Pole, but we will recognize that thanks to her we exist on the international arena – says the 10th competitor of the 1994 Olympics.
Rechnio has no bad intentions in addressing this theme. – Katia has nothing to complain about. She wants to represent us, she has learned our language, everything is fine. My point is only that figure skating in Poland is not developing very much. Unfortunately, we have to help ourselves with players from other countries – explains Rechnio. – But let’s hope that the results of Katia, Natalia and Maks as well as Kornel Witkowski will give momentum – he adds.
Natalia Kaliszek and Maksym Spodyriew, from Ukraine, took 17th place in the competition of dance pairs. And four years ago, there were 14 pairs at the Pyeongchang Games. Witkowski, on the other hand, is our gifted soloist (born in 2002), who made his debut this year at the European Championships and was 18.
Walijew? “I think you have to wait”
Rechnio also draws attention to what is controversial in figure skating – the age of the athletes. – Katia is still really in fashion and there is nothing to compare her to teenagers eating for Russia or to me from years ago. Yes, I was 16 when I made my debut at the Olympics, but it’s just that each organism develops differently and each reaches its peak form at a different point – he argues.
But is it healthy that the trainers and systems squeeze out the best of many very young organisms and cause irreversible losses in these organisms? The world of sports has been discussing for several days about the newest Russian supertalent born in 2006, with a disclosed doping slip-up, and yet with subsequent appearances at the Beijing Olympics!
– I do not want to comment on this matter, because everything is very unprofessionally conducted and I believe that we have to wait for the final results, for the opinion that will be issued after the Olympics – says Rechnio. “There is a lot of weird information at the moment, and it comes from nowhere,” he adds. – In any case, when it comes to the age of the players, I think that the tendency to enter such young people to the senior competition will change. I think that in the senior category, however, older players will start, that changes will be introduced after this season – sums up Rechnio, who lives in Sweden and is a figure skating coach at the Stockholm club with her.
Source: Sport
Tristin is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his in-depth and engaging writing on sports. He currently works as a writer at 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the sports industry.
