I've been... upset about ladies figure skating for a long time now.
Tutberidze's school and how they treated their young skaters left such a bad taste in my mouth that I couldn't bring myself to keep watching ladies figure skating. Frankly, after the disaster that was the Olympic 2022 (and everything before that, really), I was fairly certain I wouldn't go back to it. I haven't watched any competition since, not even in the other categories.
So I don't know what led me to watch tonight's event.
When I tuned in late in the event, it was to a skater I didn't know. Which is not that surprising, since I didn't know who was the favorite for tonight, or even who kept competing and who retired in the last 4 years. She was nice, attempted a quad but missed. What I was drawn to was her hands and arms; the way they moved constantly, mezmerizing dance that is usually almost forgotten by the other skaters. It's the kind of thing that made me fall in love with Yulia Lipnitskaya's skating, then Evgenia Medvedeva's. It brought a pang of bitterness, only intensified by the last spin — it was such a Yulia spin— and then I saw her coach. This man, still here and still doing the same bullshit. I hate them for teaching me to love something so pretty but that is built on so much violence and abuse. At least I got to appreciate his dejected face when they didn't place on the podium.
It gave me some peace to watch the Japanese skaters, jumping and dancing with ease, not overdoing it on dangerous jump sequences and being the top dogs anyway. I remember thinking, maybe the ladies figure skating had already started healing itself.
Then Alysa Liu took the ice. I had watched the video of her short program earlier and I had been very pleased with it. I had liked her early in her career, despite how similar she looked to the young Russian athletes, with the quads, the quick rise in the ranking— And then she retired at 16. I remember a sigh of relief and the thought of "Good for her!" because now there was no risk of watching her crash and burn. Seeing her come back on her own terms years later, healthy and happy, was probably what brought me back to this event. I wanted it to feel like watching Jason Brown: you know he most likely won't win, since he doesn't have all the fancy quads, but he is delightful to watch, has enough artistry to shame all the other skaters and a longevity on the senior level most could only dream of.
I didn't care if Alysa Liu didn't win; I just wanted to watch something enjoyable.
And boy. She skated like this was a party. Sassy but in control, efficient and careful. Free. Every twist and turn was saying "I'm doing this for the love of skating." Her body was the one of a woman, not some impossibly lean and unhealthy body that I kept seeing in competition back then. Her jumps were impressive and her technique brilliant, but there was no desperate reach for overly difficult jumps to try and go higher and higher. She didn't care about anything other than having fun. And the crowd was right there with her.
[record scratching] I suddenly very much cared for Alysa Liu winning that gold medal.
Because this is exactly what figure skating should be: healthy and carefree. I watched her and her fellow skaters hyping each other, laughing and crying together, supporting each other despite them being from different countries and it being the fucking Olympics. As the French commentators were saying, watching her skate didn't even make you feel tense or worried. At the last 2 Winter Olympics, everything was tension, worry, and then somehow even the gold medalist couldn't really be fucking happy. I left both feeling disgusted by how it turned out for those girls, and disgusting for having been there to watch it like I was supporting such a thing.
She won that gold medal and I could have weeped.
I'm not sure if I'll go back to figure skating or not after this. But THIS is everything I had wish on those Russian skaters I had cheered then cried for: a figure skating world that was safe, healthy, encouraging and hopeful.
