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Luna Hendrix's victory at the European Championships could give impetus to the development of women's single skating on the continent, until recently seemed to be an endangered species. discusses the unobvious consequences of the Belgian figure skater's championship.
The European Championship is a particularly nostalgic tournament. More intimate than the World Championships and Olympics – many spectators went to watch it live in all these Stockholms, Bratislava, Tallinn and Minsk. Almost festive, because we haven’t had time to put away the New Year’s decorations yet. Guaranteed success: if you don’t take into account the troubled times, when Irina Slutskaya had already left and our young stars had not yet grown up, the Russian team always left with medals.
But even when the Russians did not make it to the podium, the tournament provided a truly wonderful spectacle with Caroline Costner, Sarah Mayer and the Finnish princesses Kiira Korpi, Laura Lepistö and Susanna Pöukiö. Now we are trying to console ourselves with the fact that the lists of participants include a dozen familiar names representing a variety of countries. Anastasia Gracheva – Moldova. Ekaterina Kurakova – Poland. Antonina Dubinina – Serbia, and so on.
We are rooting for Anastasia Gubanova because she is beautiful and comes from Tolyatti. We sympathize with Luna Hendricks because she is a cutie and just recently skated next to Anna Shcherbakova and Alexandra Trusova. For the same reason, by the way, we don’t like them, because Shcherbakova and Trusova still exist somewhere, and Luna has a chance to equal them in titles. It seems that in our initial sympathy for her there was much more patronizing permission to stand at the throne of the great than a sincere desire to succeed and surpass them.
But for European figure skaters, the European Championships must have evoked fundamentally different feelings. Again this ordinary start, where a crowd of Russian girls will come and cause destruction, brick by brick dismantling the pedestal for souvenirs. A purely Russian holiday, which for some reason is still called the European Championship, and not “Tutberidze’s students and all, all, all.”
< br>The last two years have changed everything. Now a pretty 17-year-old debutant from a not very strong sports country can immediately become a bronze medalist at the Euro. And in general, any figure skater with more or less stable jumps and a famous name can not only see a gold medal in a dream (and then on Kamila Valieva’s neck), but also hold it in her own hands, feeling the coldness of the alloy.
< br>In general, there is a feeling that Luna Hendrix's victory and Nina Pinzarrone's bronze are the reason for a potential boom in women's singles skating in Europe. Something similar happened to poker in 2003, when Chris Moneymaker won the WSOP World Championship and $2.5 million by qualifying for it through a penny satellite tournament. He didn't have the money to get to Las Vegas, so his father and a friend paid for the trip. How can one not remember that Luna Hendricks raised money for a trip to the Beijing Olympics through crowdfunding?
Moneymaker's story gave hope to everyone – from students and gas station workers to accountants and hairdressers – that they too could become millionaires through poker. The story of Luna Hendricks, the girl next door, who conquers stadiums in sexy Madonna-style dresses without doing anything supernatural, gives hope to the same girls that they too will be champions.
Figure skating used to lack this flair of accessibility and down-to-earthness. What was it previously proposed to strive for, who to defeat? For Alexander Trusov, for whom jumping a quadruple jump, swimming across the Atlantic and going into a cage with lions is like going for a manicure. Anna Shcherbakova, whose earthly origin we have yet to prove. Perhaps, in fact, she is a representative of some race of Middle-earth not described by Tolkien – something between an elf and a human. Alena Kostornaya, who glides in a way that cannot be learned – you have to be born with it. Kamila Valieva, whom judges and specialists were ready to carry in their arms for her genius. Even the titanic Trusova and the fairy Shcherbakova lost to her in good shape, what can we say about mere mortal European figure skaters.
Yes, it happened in the same year the championship of Sofia Samodurova without ultra-si elements – thanks to her plus start and her hard work, she won in Minsk in 2019, while Alina Zagitova, struggling with puberty and injuries, tried to collect herself after the Olympics. But this exception rather confirmed the general rule – it is impossible to defeat Russian figure skaters. And this idea had a very destructive effect on European figure skating.
What now looks like degradation (in terms of results and technical complexity), in the long term may turn out to be a renaissance. And then the return of Russian athletes to international competitions – and it must happen someday – will be equally interesting and difficult for all parties.
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