Team USA

[memae]

On 10/7/2019 at 12:19 AM, Louitunes said:

Glorious.  Please be well and with that skate we'll see you in Turin! 

 

I want him to be there soooooo bad. 

[yuzuangel]

http://www.uscannenbergmedia.com/2019/10/10/gracie-gold-isnt-ready-for-a-comeback/

[yuzuangel]

 

 

Looks like Yuna's dress

[Old Cat Lady]

21 hours ago, yuzuangel said:

http://www.uscannenbergmedia.com/2019/10/10/gracie-gold-isnt-ready-for-a-comeback/

 

 

I wonder what her motivation is.  If it's just to enjoy skating and end her career when she's in a happy place, then good for her.  But if it's to try to be a medal contender or national champion or even to be a figure skating star, then I really worry for her. I don't think she's going to achieve any of those things and I'm worried it'll crush her when she's already fragile. 

[memae]

Her coaches have a lot to answer for. They should know better. They do know better. They don't care about the consequences so long as they can squeeze something out of her that benefits them.

 

I had a coach like that as a teenager (in a very different sport). My recovery was only important to him in terms of my performance as an athlete rather than my health because of what it meant for his reputation as my coach. I ended up worse off than before. It still affects me, years later. Makes it very hard to watch what's happening with Gracie, because I really do not believe the people around her have her best interests at heart so much as their own. I just want her to be healthy and happy and to be skating because she's trying to reconnect with a sport she must have loved at one point rather than trying to regain her position and status in it - something that already cost her both health and happiness in the past.

[ralucutzagy]

 

 

[madraykin]

Vincent Zhou has withdrawn from both his GP events.

 

 

http://www.isuresults.com/events/cat03109465.htm

[KitSileya]

59 minutes ago, madraykin said:

Vincent Zhou has withdrawn from both his GP events.

 

 

http://www.isuresults.com/events/cat03109465.htm

Anyone know why? It’s probably an injury (what else could make him drop both GPs?), which is a shame. I might not like how the judges don’t call his URs, but he has shown steady improvement lately.

[Fay]

1 hour ago, KitSileya said:

Anyone know why? It’s probably an injury (what else could make him drop both GPs?), which is a shame. I might not like how the judges don’t call his URs, but he has shown steady improvement lately.

It’s because he’s too busy with his studies. 

 

[yuzuangel]

1 hour ago, Fay said:

It’s because he’s too busy with his studies. 

 

well... i didn't expect that. maybe there's something else going on? oh well, i won't speculate. i mean, there's only so many seasons until the next Olympics, and as a skater you only have so many years, whereas you can go to school whenever you retire. but i respect his decision and am glad it's not an injury.

[Veveco]

 

 

[WinForPooh]

Ah, Raf.

Quote

Chen also stated that he was not landing the quad loop at the moment (although some 2017 footage indicates that he did land it). This means that five quad-programs certainly remain within reach for the time being.

“Of course, we’re working on getting six quads again, and also a quad Axel, and may be quintuples one day,” Arutunian said. “What Nathan is doing in practice now is not what you see in competition.”

 

https://olympics.nbcsports.com/2019/11/05/will-nathan-chen-return-to-six-quad-jumps-in-his-free-skate/

[ralucutzagy]

 

 

[Salior]

Oh god I didn't know the circumstances that led to Gracie Gold's condition. The only other fellow female runner sponsored under the same Nike program as Gracie spoke out recently, and it's terrifying.

 

 

There's a pay wall so I've reproduced the text as below. Original article here.

 

Quote

I Was the Fastest Girl in America, Until I Joined Nike

By Mary Cain

Nov. 7, 2019

 

“Equal Play” is an Opinion video series showcasing the insurgent athletes who are dragging women’s sports into the 21st century. The article below is by Lindsay Crouse.

 

 

This article has been updated with responses from Nike, Mary Cain and other athletes.

 

At 17, Mary Cain was already a record-breaking phenom: the fastest girl in a generation, and the youngest American track and field athlete to make a World Championships team. In 2013, she was signed by the best track team in the world, Nike’s Oregon Project, run by its star coach Alberto Salazar.

 

Then everything collapsed. Her fall was just as spectacular as her rise, and she shares that story for the first time in the Video Op-Ed above.

Instead of becoming a symbol of girls’ unlimited potential in sports, Cainbecame yet another standout young athlete who got beaten down by a win-at-all-costs culture. Girls like Cain become damaged goods and fade away. We rarely hear what happened to them. We move on.

 

The problem is so common it affected the only other female athlete featured in the last Nike video ad Cain appeared in, the figure skater Gracie Gold. When the ad came out in 2014, Gold, like Cain, was a prodigy considered talented enough to win a gold medal at the next Olympics. And, like Cain, Gold got caught in a system where she was compelled to become thinner and thinner. Gold developed disordered eating to the point of imagining taking her life.

 

Nike has come under fire in recent months for doping charges involving Salazar. He is now banned from the sport for four years, and his elite Nike team has been dismantled. In October, Nike’s chief executive resigned. (In an email, Salazar denied many of Cain’s claims, and said he had supported her health and welfare. Nike did not respond to a request for comment.)

 

The culture that created Salazar remains.

 

Kara Goucher, an Olympic distance runner who trained with the same program under Salazar until 2011, said she experienced a similar environment, with teammates weighed in front of one another.

 

“When you’re training in a program like this, you’re constantly reminded how lucky you are to be there, how anyone would want to be there, and it’s this weird feeling of, ‘Well, then, I can’t leave it. Who am I without it?’” Goucher said. “When someone proposes something you don’t want to do, whether it’s weight loss or drugs, you wonder, ‘Is this what it takes? Maybe it is, and I don’t want to have regrets.’ Your careers are so short. You are desperate. You want to capitalize on your career, but you’re not sure at what cost.”

 

She said that after being cooked meager meals by an assistant coach, she often had to eat more in the privacy of her condo room, nervous he would hear her open the wrappers of the energy bars she had there.

 

A big part of this problem is that women and girls are being forced to meet athletic standards that are based on how men and boys develop. If you try to make a girl fit a boy’s development timeline, her body is at risk of breaking down. That is what happened to Cain.

 

After months of dieting and frustration, Cain found herself choosing between training with the best team in the world, or potentially developing osteoporosis or even infertility. She lost her period for three years and broke five bones. She went from being a once-in-a-generation Olympic hopeful to having suicidal thoughts.

 

“America loves a good child prodigy story, and business is ready and waiting to exploit that story, especially when it comes to girls,” said Lauren Fleshman, who ran for Nike until 2012. “When you have these kinds of good girls, girls who are good at following directions to the point of excelling, you’ll find a system that’s happy to take them. And it’s rife with abuse.”

 

We don’t typically hear from the casualties of these systems — the girls who tried to make their way in this system until their bodies broke down and they left the sport. It’s easier to focus on bright new stars, while forgetting about those who faded away. We fetishize the rising athletes, but we don’t protect them. And if they fail to pull off what we expect them to, we abandon them.

 

Mary Cain is 23, and her story certainly isn’t over. By speaking out, she’s making sure of that.

 

On Thursday, Nike released this statement: 

These are deeply troubling allegations which have not been raised by Mary or her parents before. Mary was seeking to rejoin the Oregon Project and Alberto’s team as recently as April of this year and had not raised these concerns as part of that process. We take the allegations extremely seriously and will launch an immediate investigation to hear from former Oregon Project athletes. At Nike we seek to always put the athlete at the center of everything we do, and these allegations are completely inconsistent with our values.

On Friday, Mary Cain responded to Nike’s statement: 

For many years, the only thing I wanted in the world was the approval of Alberto Salazar. I still loved him. Alberto was like a father to me, or even like a god.

 

Last spring, I told Alberto I wanted to work with him again — only him — because when we let people emotionally break us, we crave their approval more than anything.

 

I was the victim of an abusive system, an abusive man. I was constantly tormented by the conflict of wanting to be free from him and wanting to go back to the way things used to be, when I was his favorite.

 

Last month, after the doping report dropped that led to his suspension, I felt this quick and sudden release. That helped me understand that this system is not O.K. That’s why I decided to speak up now.

 

People should never have to fear coming forward. I hope this Nike investigation centers on the culture that created Alberto. Nike has the chance to make a change and protect its athletes going forward.

The video led to an outpouring of stories and eyewitness accounts from other athletes. 

 

Shalane Flanagan, Olympic medalist, New York City Marathon champion and Nike coach. 

Cam Levins, Olympian and former Nike athlete. 

Amy Begley, Olympian and former Nike athlete. 

Steve Magness, former Nike coach.

 

It's really terrible... what they could've been if they were never subjected to this... These "coaches" should really be prosecuted for abuse, how can they be let free like that when people suffer for a lifetime and have their future ruined because of them. 

[Figure_Frenzy]

About Gracie, I don't know the extent of Nike's involvement with her coaching situation at that time (around 2014/15 Olys season), but I do know that her coach at that time, Frank Carroll, actually has anti-Midas touch (ie. any skater he coaches gets worse, esp. technically speaking), and it wasn't just Gracie that got worse with Frank — there were also Michael Christian Martinez from the Philippines and Denis Ten (). If Gracie wasn't subjected to that weigh in routine with the Nike team, she definitely was subjected to it under Frank's coaching.

 

Anyhow it goes to show that the weigh in routine is widespread among skating coaches, especially those who are old school. We often talk about Eteri's team when we talk about weigh in routine in regards to lady skaters, but Eteri's team is definitely not the only one doing it, there are also Frank Carroll, and (perhaps) Raf too (I mean remember that he openly mocked skaters he deemed to be overweight, especially the ladies )