On a day which many expected to be dominated by one teenager, it was a different, former teen star with a very different story who took centre stage, winning Olympic gold with a dazzling performance at the Milano Ice Skating Arena.
Self-styled ‘alt girl’ Alysa Liu – a charismatic former teen star who retired from the sport after burning out before rediscovering her love of skating and returning to competition – set the stadium alight with her distinctive loose, free-flowing style and glitzy Donna Summer routine.
Team gold medallist Ilia Malinin, another to bear the weight of expectation, was among those to cheer on his fellow world champion, who jumped for joy and beamed as she left the ice.
The 20-year-old set a season’s best of 150.20 points – nearly four points clear of her previous best – to lay down a marker to the final two skaters to go.
Three-time world champion Kaori Sakamoto of Japan missed a major combination, which cost her significant points in an otherwise powerful and elegant routine to an Edith Piaf medley.
The 25-year-old, competing in her final Olympics before retirement, waved to the crowd but was in tears as she entered the aptly named kiss and cry, knowing it wasn’t enough for gold.
Sakamoto finished just shy of two points behind Liu, while 17-year-old compatriot Ami Nakai, competing in her first Olympic Games, produced a peerless short programme and nearly matched that by finishing third overall on Thursday.
The teenager beamed as she took to the ice and the smile rarely left her face as she floated through a lyrical and beautifully executed programme – barring one underrotated jump – to take bronze.
She looked on the verge of tears of joy as Liu hugged her when her final score came in. “I love you both,” Liu said, the picture of happiness.
Liu has no triple axel and no quad jump in this routine, but her sheer vivacity and joy of skating shone through in a performance as glittering as her sparkling gold dress.
It was a far cry from the world of Russian teenager Adeliia Petrosian, who had been the one to dominate the build-up to this Olympic Games. But the 18-year-old finished well down in sixth overall.
Petrosian’s very presence struck at the heart of a problem which has once again taken centre stage at the Olympic Games.
In four years’ time Petrosian may be able to compete under the Russian flag, without any pretence of representing nowhere in particular. The IOC has made noticeable overtures towards Russia in recent weeks; separately, the Paralympics have allowed Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete under their own flags in just a few weeks time, much to the disapproval of hosts Italy.
Petrosian was widely expected to be the first ‘neutral athlete’ to win a medal, although earlier on Thursday Nikita Filippov took that dubious honour with a silver in ski mountaineering. Petrosian winning another was not out of the question, despite a short programme many believed was over-marked.
The 18-year-old has largely been shielded from the world; the only notice many had of her potential was in the ‘Skate to Milano’ qualifying event she won prior to the Games.
How she is welcomed by the figure skating world may be telling in the ongoing saga of where Russia finds itself in international sport in the coming years.
Petrosian is coached by the highly controversial Eteri Tutberidze, who achieved notoriety for publicly berating 15-year-old Kamila Valieva after she fell several times in her free skate in Beijing four years ago, days after the news of her positive doping test came to light.
Tutberidze was found not guilty by Wada and avoided any sanction over the Valieva doping affair, and was granted accreditation for this Olympics as a coach of Georgian skater Nika Egadze.
Tutberidze is not officially registered as Petrosian’s coach – she would have had to go through the IOC’s vetting process, which she is believed to be likely to fail.
Wada president Witold Banka said earlier this month that Tutberidze’s presence made him “uncomfortable”, but the coach was approved nevertheless.
But she has been spotted at the 18-year-old’s practice sessions and has been loud about skirting around the regulations: she said in a documentary featuring pre-Olympics qualifying competitions: “I specifically moved away so that we wouldn’t cross paths anywhere, because they were really watching us.”
Her influence is all over Petrosian’s routines, from the non-traditional jumping technique, to the high-kicks and ragged transitions between sequences.
And likely in Petrosian’s expiry date: Tutberidze’s charges have largely burned bright for one Olympic cycle, before retiring early, dogged by injuries.
Petrosian’s free skate was an improvement on a somewhat spiky short programme, aside from a fall on an under-rotated quad loop – the only quad any skater has attempted in the competition.
She fell repeatedly on the quad in practice and if rumours of a groin injury are true, perhaps it would have been the correct call from her coaching team – whatever it may be officially or unofficially composed of – to suggest she avoid it.
So it was for the better, for reasons both political and psychological, that Petrosian failed to make the podium on Thursday night: a win for less damaging methods of coaching, and for wider sport.
US national champion Amber Glenn made up for a heavily penalised mistake in her short programme – a triple jump that was awarded zero points as it was downgraded to a double – with an excellent free programme, bar a hand down on a triple loop.
Glenn stood up and applauded for several of the competitors to go after her; it was interesting that she only smiled and blinked knowingly at the camera as the camera panned to her after Petrosian’s skate. The teenager went into second, less than four-tenths behind Glenn, but remained stone-faced as the scores came in.
Glenn was to finish just off the podium in fifth, with her compatriot Liu winning an individual gold to go with the USA’s overall team gold from last week.
Liu is the reigning world champion and among ice skating’s biggest stars. She retired at 16 – a similar age to when many of Tutberidze’s stars retire – after falling out of love with the sport and the restrictive nature of her training.
But a few years later she returned, having taken time away to be a regular teenager, going on holiday, learning to drive, spending time with her friends. By the time she came back to the ice she had reclaimed her agency and taken control of her own skating, from the costumes she wore to the way she approached the sport. “I’m older and I’ve learned so many lessons. I’m so much better at protecting my peace and knowing why I do the things I do,” she said last autumn.
As Liu jumped around and celebrated in Milan on Thursday, it was hard to argue that this wasn’t a victory for skating as it should be.
