“Stupid and insane”: ISU removed Shcherbakova from a string of Olympic champions in Beijing

Olympic congratulations without a photo of Shcherbakova

The International Skating Union (ISU) celebrates everyone’s International Olympic Day. True, the celebration itself turned out to be extremely ambiguous.

A collage of four pictures posted on social media featured all the Olympic champions except the women’s figure skating events.

American single skater Nathan Chen was released alongside Chinese couple Wenjing Sui and Han Cong and French dance duo Gabriela Papadakis and Guillaume Sizeron, not Russian Anna Shcherbakova, but Japanese Kaori Sakamoto.

Recall that at the Games in Beijing, Shcherbakova won the women’s single skating in brilliant style in front of her compatriot Alexandra Trusova in a bitter struggle, becoming the first woman among women to perform five quads in a single program, and Sakamoto remained. only the third. Kamila Valieva, who was psychologically broken by doping charges, although she may have won the medal largely due to the failure of the main favourite.

Sakamoto himself isn’t proficient in any ultra-c elements and has only done normal triple jump content cleanly.

But later the ISU suspended their participation in international competitions under the auspices of Russian figure skaters due to Russia’s special operation in Ukraine, and they missed the World Championships. In the absence of Shcherbakova, Trusova and Valieva, Sakamoto took first place in the women’s singles at the World Championships.

In addition, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has not yet held an award ceremony for the Olympic team tournament won by the Russian team due to the ongoing doping case of Valieva, who tested positive for banned trimetazidine in December.

For some reason, the test result appeared only at the Games, when the team tournament had already passed and it was impossible to make substitutions. Although there is no doubt that together with Trusova or Shcherbakova, the Russian team will also win gold.

“Russia brings the culture and beauty of sports to the world”

In Russia, the reaction to congratulations from the ISU was absolutely negative. “I think it’s insane to remove photos of our men,” said Tatyana Navka, Olympic champion in ice dancing in 2006, quoting Metaratings.

“It’s like International Olympic Day. Even though the Olympic movement is dead…” The 2002 men’s Olympic champion Alexei Yagudin wrote on his social networks.

A rather detailed interpretation was given by the Olympic medalist and now famous choreographer Ilya Averbukh.

“Of course this is the pinnacle of stupidity, I can’t call it any other way. The contribution of Soviet and Russian figure skating to the world of figure skating, including the formation of the ISU, cannot be overestimated. It is so great and the glory of figure skating, its history has been largely associated with Russian names for more than 50 years. “It’s a sign of stupidity and weakness – I can’t call it anything else.”

“God, I don’t want to talk about it – what else should they do, advertising? If they remove the photo, they violate all Olympic principles,” says three-time Olympic champion Irina Rodnina.