Wow, to read the stories about Julia Lipnitskaia’s great performance today, you’d think she’d just appeared on the scene and nobody had ever heard of her. As it happens, though, she’s the reigning European Champion, and also the reigning ISU Grand Prix Final silver medalist. (But she ought to be the reigning Grand Prix Final gold medalist.) That she’s an amazing skater is only news to people who do not follow figure skating. The fact is, she is better now than Yuna Kim and Mao Asada were in 2007, and back then, they were the best and most exciting skaters most everyone had ever seen in Ladies’ Singles.
It’s funny, because Julia is 15, and as I recall it, the Olympics in 2006 changed the rules to keep another 15-year-old, Mao Asada (considered the best skater in the world in her discipline, and a lock for the gold medal), out of the Olympics. Let me see if I can guess what happened…
Well Russia had Irina Slutskaya, and the United States had Sasha Cohen, and they each wanted their skater to win the gold medal. But there was a problem: everyone said Mao Asada would likely win. So my guess is that both countries lobbied the IOC to keep Asada out, and in a karma retribution, another Japanese skater won the gold medal in her place: Shizuka Arakawa. So Japan won the gold anyway. (Always the correct result when there is corruption in sports, although sadly, it doesn’t always work out that way.)
My guess is that the IOC figured Mao would easily win her gold medal in 2010, so they didn’t feel badly about it; but then it transpired that she did not win it, so they really ought to feel awful, those cheaters.
But hey, now a 15-year-old is allowed to compete: wow, what do you know about that? And it just happens that she’s Russian and perhaps the best in the world, and the Olympics are being held in Russia. What a coincidence! I’m very happy she’s in the Olympics, especially with her home crowd cheering her on, but it still seems like a gyp to me that Mao Asada didn’t get to skate in Torino, and I would be willing to bet she was kept out due to lobbying corruption, and that Julia was guaranteed admission even though she’s 15 (like Asada was in 2006) due to Russian pressure on the IOC. (And I am not a gambling man.)
But there really should be no age limits anyway. If a preemie could legitimately win, I say let them in!
Here’s the not at all shocking story:
(BTW: I don’t want to guess who will win, but unless Yuna Kim is at her very best, Julia Lipnitskaia really looks like the best in the world right now to me, and even if she’s not, she’s certainly the most exciting young skater in the world today (along with Gracie Gold, if she can skate clean competitive programs).
Oh, and I have never seen Carolina Costner skate so well in her life as she did at the team Ladies' SP. Wow, it was truly an amazing performance!
(I hope everyone knows what a treat we all have in store for the Ladies' Singles competition! This is likely going to be the greatest Olympics ever for figure skating. I hope everyone gets to see it.)
