Figure skating almost ruined my life — I feel so bad for Kamila Valieva

When I read that the Court of Arbitration for Sport was allowing Russia’s Kamila Valieva to compete in the Women’s Free Skate despite an earlier positive drugs test, I felt a brief moment of relief. The thought of a 15-year-old skater experiencing a career-ending scandal had alarmed me. CAS’s ruling meant that the only real penalty imposed by the International Olympic Committee would be the absence of a medal ceremony, assuming she still placed.

As seen in today’s competition, she did not place, or even reach the podium. Valieva faltered on most of her jumps, eventually falling on a quad toe loop. She stepped off the ice with a look of disgust in herself, and cried. Valieva’s coach, Eteri Tutberidze, did not make any attempt to embrace or console the obviously devastated skater. Instead she barraged Valieva with questions, asking in a video posted to Twitter and later deleted: “Why did you let go? Why did you stop fighting?” Tutberidze specifically referenced a fumbled triple axel where Valieva placed her hand on the ice while berating her. Valieva had no response.

Being surrounded by as much controversy as she is, it doesn’t surprise me that the pressure affected Valieva’s performance to such a degree. The issue that worries me most, however, is the trauma that will likely follow her after the scandal into her projected early retirement.

As a former artistic roller skater who trained for seven years, I understand how the intense training, unrealistic standards of technique, and the environment fostered by coaches molded Valieva’s situation into a nightmare. The same situation almost ruined my life.

I began skating at age 10 in a small Los Angeles rink. I took beginner lessons so that I wouldn’t embarrass myself at a school PTA function and found myself joining the team after completing the advanced class. Artistic roller skating mirrors ice skating in many of its jumps, spins, and scoring metrics. And it also mirrors in ice skating in a much darker sense: both sports are hyper-competitive and toxic to the point of trauma.

I joined the team in fifth grade with my best friend at the time, Gina*. We practiced together before our team’s coaches began taking us for private lessons. As our involvement in the sport increased, I trained with Coach Ellen* for the freestyle and figures events and Coach Lily* for the dance and creative events. Gina trained exclusively with Coach Lily for every event, which affected our friendship in ways I could never have imagined.

Coaches focus their attention on who whoever they believe is going to win. It was apparent early on that I was terrified of falling on jumps, which severely hindered my freestyle routine. I was the best at spins and creative footwork in my rink, along with a consistently above-average standard of performance. I also excelled at dance skating and figures, two disciplines I refused to pursue because they bored me. That didn’t seem to matter, though, since Gina and most of the other girls on my team had better jumps and good footwork, cementing me at the bottom of the team pyramid. Lessons with Coach Ellen were almost a formality, since she knew I wouldn’t place at any competitions in freestyle.

The creative program was where I really had a chance, but Coach Lily made up her mind early on that I would never place as high as Gina. She gave other skaters extra time if they skated with her before my lesson, severely cutting my training time and wasting my parents’ money. Gina began to bully me and the coaches told us to resolve our issues outside the rink instead of taking action. I gave my all in team events because I desperately needed to prove my worth, but I slacked off in my individual freestyle routines because I knew my coaches’ opinion of me would stay the same regardless of how hard I worked.

I became known for my excellent stamina, skating 15 creative programs in a row during my best practice. I woke up at six in the morning for weekend training, skating 16 hours each week. Even when I hit puberty and began experiencing intensely long, painful periods from an undiagnosed bleeding disorder, I took my coaches’ advice and “sucked it up”.

In 2017, I finally placed second at national championships skating the quartet event with Gina and two other girls. I found out years later that my coaches wanted to replace me with another girl after regionals because I was “inconsistent and not as hard of a worker”. I only competed after my mother begged the other girl’s mom to let me continue.

I had to quit skating early due to Patellofemoral pain syndrome, meaning I damaged the cartilage under my kneecap due to sports activity during puberty. The news crushed me: it felt like I had ruined my confidence, sense of self-worth, and a part of my body for a sport that I never truly succeeded at. I dedicated my childhood to a dramatic, hyper-competitive group of people that would go on without me.

I can only imagine Kamila Valieva’s pain at reaching the top and then having her victory seized by a drug she likely did not choose to take. Tutberidze has so much influence over Valieva’s diet, team relationship, and life outside of skating, like my coaches did. I am haunted by the knowledge that I would have given everything for my team, just as Valieva did. We sacrificed so much for figure skating — including, most tragically, our childhoods.

*Gina, Ellen and Lily are pseudonyms