Some determine skaters are hoping an Olympic doping scandal this is fueling a push to boost the minimal age of competition will even center of attention consideration on what they see as the game’s maximum urgent factor: physique picture, physique shaming and disordered consuming.
The game is beneath scrutiny after 15-year-old Kamila Valieva of the Russian Olympic Committee examined certain for a banned center medicine, then didn’t medal in an match for which she used to be the overpowering favourite.
Valieva’s ordeal has led some skating officers to suggest elevating the minimal age for elite determine skating competitions from 15 to 17, forward of the 2026 Iciness Olympics in Italy.
The age query is inseparable from the game’s struggles with consuming issues and physique picture. More youthful, much less advanced skaters are doing issues at the ice that extra mature girls’s our bodies can’t, particularly the quadruple jumps carried out in Beijing via Valieva and different youngster skaters operating together with her embattled trainer, Eteri Tutberidze.
“We see women who’re truly younger and skinny and who do truly neatly in our recreation,” mentioned Josefin Taljegård, a 26-year-old Swedish determine skater who competed within the girls’s particular person match in Beijing. “Possibly that’s why they’re so thin – as a result of they’re nonetheless youngsters.”
That places power on older skaters to stay tempo.
“It most often isn’t like ‘Oh you need to glance this sort of method’ however every now and then one can listen ’Oh when you have been skinnier, you can leap upper or rotate sooner,” Taljegård mentioned.
Jean Catuffe by way of Getty Pictures
Whilst the Valieva case has targeted the arena’s consideration on doping, skaters say physique picture problems are way more pervasive within the recreation. The 2014 magnificence of Olympic skaters is evidence.
Yulia Lipnitskaya used to be Russia’s golden woman on the Sochi Video games when she used to be 15, earlier than turning into a cautionary story of power anorexia when she retired as a result of her struggles with the dysfunction.
American Gracie Gold’s well known tale of overcoming nervousness and an consuming dysfunction to proceed competing has been an inspiration for lots of skaters.
U.S. ice dancer Kaitlin Hawayek, 25, mentioned she had an consuming dysfunction for a number of years. Now not sufficient has been achieved to coach younger skaters to look “their physique is excellent precisely the best way it’s,” she mentioned.
Hawayek feels lucky to have the make stronger of her training team of workers, nutritionist and running shoes at the U.S. crew. “I’ve truly been ready to look a brand new mindset that has allowed me to embody my physique,” she mentioned.
ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT by way of Getty Pictures
U.S. determine skater Alysa Liu, who is solely 16, mentioned she discovered some way to deal with unfavourable feedback about her physique, but it surely took time for her to in point of fact perceive the dynamic she used to be being stuck up in. The American prodigy positioned within the best 10 for the ladies’s particular person match this week.
“I handled numerous negativity, like two years in the past,” Liu mentioned of the various critics who’ve commented on her very public enlargement spurt. “At one level, I used to be like, why are they actually coming for a 14 12 months outdated? That’s so bizarre. They’re simply roughly creepy for that. Why are they having a look at a minor’s physique that method? It’s just a bit bizarre and roughly mistaken, clearly.”
Matthew Stockman by way of Getty Pictures
U.S. pairs skater Ashley Cain-Gribble believes the next age restrict could be useful for the game she just about left because of physique shaming over her power and top. The 26-year-old is 5-foot-6, making her considerably taller than a lot of her friends.
“Give skaters a possibility to permit their physique to expand naturally,” Cain-Gribble mentioned. “I do know that I didn’t truly come into my very own physique till many later years.”
Elizabeth Daniels, a psychology professor on the College of Colorado in Colorado Springs who research physique picture in sports activities, is skeptical that an age trade on my own may cope with this factor.
The bigger cultural drawback, Daniels mentioned, is that inventive sports activities like determine skating, gymnastics or even diving are judged subjectively.
Part of a skating rating is in keeping with how judges view the efficiency — track, gown, waft and the total really feel. A extra concise metric may possibly assist trade the tradition of eating regimen and diuretics in skating.
“They’re being judged on how they execute a ability, but in addition how they give the impression of being whilst they’re doing it,” Daniels mentioned. “If you have a recreation like that, and you might be judged on this inventive method, the query turns into ‘Does my physique conform?’ That, I feel, will increase the opportunity of consuming issues.”
Skater or now not, physique dissatisfaction can usually be noticed in women as younger as 5, height right through youth and stay consistent right through a lady’s 20s.
Sports activities like determine skating cater to physique varieties which can be small and lightweight but have compatibility and muscular, mentioned Luke Corey, a sports activities medication dietitian on the Mayo Hospital.
4 mins of intense exertion is very tough for even the most efficient athletes on this planet, so it’s no wonder that skaters would possibly cross to extremes if they believe it could possibly assist their efficiency.
“We’re now not intended to look ache and vulnerability and all that, so it’s laborious to know,” Corey mentioned. “We wish larger, higher however at what price?”
Valieva’s case presentations that the youngest skaters could also be particularly prone to such pressures from adults pushing a win-at-all-costs manner, Cain-Gribble mentioned. Elevating the minimal age would assist.
“You want to be at an age the place you’re ready to make selections and assume by yourself and be responsible and be capable of know what is correct and what’s mistaken,” she mentioned, “and now not simply be depending on the ones folks which can be in control of you.”