Her success lead to a boom in young female figure skaters, primarily Russian, attempting quadruple jumps – thought to be impossible just a few decades before. Some of those following in Trusova’s footsteps are: Kamila Valieva, Anna Shcherbakova, and Sofya Akatyeva, all coached by Eteri Tutberidze. 

Figure skating fans joke about the ‘Eteri Expiration Date’ because many of Tutberidze’s students retire around the age of 17 but this is not normal. Severe injuries and intense training is forcing skaters into early retirement. This report looks at what the skaters, Eteri Tutberidze and her team have to say about training at the Sambo-70 rink in Moscow.

Weight control

Tutberidze and her team tell students that strict control over their weight is necessary for success. This requirement often coincides with the skater’s changing body during puberty. 

Eteri teaches her students very difficult jumps and pirouettes, the aerodynamics they need to achieve them are only possible with low body weight and mass. 

In 2014, Tutberidze was proud to inform the press that 15-year-old Yulia Lipnitskaya, then her star pupil, sometimes existed almost entirely on a diet of powdered nutrients. Lipnitskaya achieved a gold medal in the team event at the winter Olympics of 2014. She immediately shot to fame in Russia and faced enormous pressure to continue performing in later competitions. However, due to battles with anorexia and injury, Lipnitskaya retired from competition at the age of 19. She now coaches at Angels of Plushenko, a rival skating rink also in Moscow. She refuses to speak to Tutberidze, having nothing good to say about her and the training environment in Sambo-70.

Alina Zagitova, the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympic champion, shared in interviews with the press that she was not allowed to drink water at all during the Olympics. She was told that it would make her “swollen” and unable to jump. She stated that she and her teammates “just rinsed [their] mouths and spat the water out.” Zagitova also shared that leading up to the Games, she was subject to weigh-ins three times a day. This mentality towards food and weight gain is so normalized in Tutberidze’s training camp that Zagitova said “in terms of puberty, when you become fat – it seems to me that these are all fictions. You just need to shut your mouth and don’t eat!”

Tutberidze’s students are told that they should eat and drink as little as possible despite training as much as elite, senior athletes. Anna Shcherbakova, the newly crowned Olympic champion, was praised by Eteri’s choreographer Daniil Gleikhengauz on national television earlier this season for not being as “obsessed with food like some girls”. He told the interviewer that Shcherbakova can eat just two shrimp for dinner and be full.

Training 

Tutberidze’s training regime relies on keeping skaters as light as possible and intense training. Evgenia Medvedeva, silver medallist at the Pyeongchang Olympics, has a chronic back injury and can no longer turn her back to the right. As a result, she formally retired from competitive figure skating at the age of 22, though she had not competed since she was 20. 

When young people overtrain without taking in the nutrients necessary for growth, career-ending injuries follow. Aliona Kostornaia, the 2020 European Champion, sustained a wrist fracture before the 2021 Russian National Championships and was thus unable to compete for an Olympic spot. The 18-year-old was back on the ice 10 weeks later, but in her first training session back she fell and broke her other wrist. Injuries are common in all sports, but there is speculation over whether Sambo-70 skaters are given the time and resources needed to heal. Daria Usacheva is another 15-year-old girl training at Sambo-70. This season she sustained a ligament tear in the right leg, practicing a jump takeoff during the 6-minute warm-up at the NHK Trophy. She had trained as usual despite hip pain that had been bothering her for a while. 

17-year-old Adyan Pitkeev was set to become one of the next stars of figure skating in 2015 after doing well on the Grand Prix circuit. However, he had a back injury prior to the 2016 Russian National Championships, and “the pain was so bad that [he] couldn’t lift [his] arms without getting sick” on the morning of the free skate. After being given 5 injections of painkillers by his coaching team, Pitkeev was forced to compete anyways. Pitkeev fell on his opening jump and was rumored to have sustained a spinal fracture. However, because he was high on morphine and feared the response from Tutberidze if he placed badly, he was able to complete the program, though he looked to be in absolute agony by the end. Since this competition, Pitkeev has never competed in figure skating again due to the severity of his back pain and is now a coach at CSKA Moscow. 

Mental Pressure

In an interview on Instagram Live with Lina Fedorova, skater Polina Shuboderova recounted one memory of being forced by her coaching team to sit in a garbage can outside of the rink after having a bad practice session. She was told that ‘trash goes in the trash’ and sat there with the lid closed for the rest of the day. 

Sambo-70 is often described as a “pressure cooker” and a “conveyor belt” due to the sheer number of top athletes raised there; 4 out of the top 10 senior ladies are students of Tutberidze. With so many skaters coached by the same team at the same rink, they are constantly competing against each other. The intense pressure and mental abuse faced by these children were put on full display to the world at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, where two 17-year-old Tutberidze students Anna Shcherbakova and Alexandra Trusova won gold and silver, respectively. 

Trusova is known as the “quad queen”, and was told by her coaching team that the day she lands 5 quadruple jumps in a competition is the day she will achieve her dream of winning Olympic gold. She gave the performance of her life at the Olympics and won a silver medal despite the base value (difficulty of her jumps, spins, etc) of her program being even higher than Nathan Chen’s, the men’s Olympic Champion. 

When Shcherbakova realized she won Olympic gold, she did not smile or have any sort of reaction, saying “I feel emotionally empty inside, nor insanely happy for myself, nor any emotions for others.” She had been left to sit alone in a room for 10 minutes with no coaches or friends to congratulate her for winning the greatest achievement there is in sports. 

All of these reports can be found pretty easily online and there are many more. Tutberidze has yet to face any repercussions for her treatment of her students. She has been voted the ‘coach of the year’ by the International Skating Union (ISU). Eteri Tutberidze believes that she and her coaching team are doing everything right, and will not take any criticism for her training methods. 

Many skaters have reported her brutal training methods but Tutberidze is still hailed as a hero by many and there is little hope that any investigation will lead to change. 

Disclaimer: Twitter and Google Translate were used to translate information from Russian media so there might be some inaccuracies in the text.

Line-ups 

Liverpool in possession:

United defended in more open-play situations. They had things more under control with a 4-1-4-1 defensive structure, with the wingers defending somewhat narrowly. But what killed United in this match was the pressing structure used when they tried to be more proactive in hopes of getting the ball back. What’s interesting is that Liverpool actually had a similar press shape in some aspects but we will look at what Klopp did differently to compensate for that shape. Whilst United was active, Rashford would press one of the center-backs with the far-side winger looking to join where there was Antony or if Rashford was pressing Van Dijk, we would see Fernandes come in off the left-hand side. This is a shape commonly used by Ten Haag’s side of late and the shape tends to leave the fullbacks with a little more room. The problem in this match was that Trent and Robertson are elite on-the-ball fullbacks.

In the picture above, we see that Rashford is looking to pick up Van Dijk so Fernandes has begun to come in central to press Konaté. Robertson may be marked by Anthony but this means that Trent on the far side has more room. 

This problem could be even worse than just Rashford and Fernandes being committed. Alisson could be quite involved in the build-up in the first phase with Van Dijk and Konaté splitting to form a genuine back three which would also allow Trent and Robertson to push higher up and provide the width. In these situations, Fernandes would pick up one man, Rashford another and that would mean that Antony would join in as well. This means the whole front 3 were committed. Robertson and Trent had even more space available.

Klopp made this more effective because it wasn’t just about what was going on in Liverpool’s defensive third. Naturally, the shapes used by both managers mean that the midfield becomes a more man-to-man battle. That could look like the picture below:

What we would often see in the middle third is that Elliot would look to push up high on the right-hand side, looking to overload Shaw in this 2v1 situation with Salah. But as it stood in the midfield, United could just shift across to prevent that overload although the fullback would still be free. As seen below:

Gakpo would be willing to drop into the midfield at times to make it a 4v3. In a situation like below, where he is the furthest man out towards the flanks, the overload is less impactful so Liverpool could allow him to have that space in this type of situation.

In this type of situation, we see United’s midfield effectively man-to-man. Eliot moves to the right so Casemiro needs to cover and here we see that Gakpo has dropped into the midfield so Fred moves towards him. Because Henderson is the furthest from the ball side, he is left as the free man but is not found in this situation. Essentially, this is what United had to do when there were 4v3 down.

Liverpool could make the Gakpo presence even more telling. What Ten Haag usually does in this pressing shape is that as the ball progresses to the fullback. He is willing to commit Dalot to press, making the rest of the back four shift across. However, in this match, Gakpo tended to drop deeper into this left-hand side position with Nunez pushing high so Nunez’s presence would mean Dalot would be reluctant to push forward due to his pace. Even if the rest of the back three looks to shift across as we saw before, Gakpo would still be the free man in this Midfield situation. What we saw instead was that Varane would often have to commit to dropping deep with Gakpo, leaving a massive gap in the back line whilst Robertson was still the man with a lot more space.

Here is an example of Gakpo dropping deep on the left and Robertson providing the width. In this scenario, Varane has had to follow. Out of shot, Nunez is locking up Dalot.

Though there had been a gap between the two defenders that Nunez was looking to exploit with the central run the ball was intercepted.

We see shades of everything mentioned in the lead-up to the first goal. Firstly, with the front three being drawn into Liverpool’s back three and Robertson having the space to receive. Then, the ball has worked back and we see United’s front two shapes with Fernandes being drawn in, now leaving Trent free. Next, Gakpo was in the left-hand side position. United’s midfield is man-to-man with Fred keeping an eye on Henderson, meaning Gakpo is still free on the left-hand side. Alisson then finds Robertson with Antony, having been high up the pitch. In this scenario, rather than Nunex staying wide to lock up Dalot, he moved centrally to lock up Varane instead so Dalot aggressively closed down Robertson. Gakpo had the run on Fred into the space ahead. Fred was in an unfamiliar right-back position and Robertson produced a great pass, allowing Gakpo to cut in and score. 

Liverpool did not only take advantage of United’s shape by directly going over the top. When Konaté was on the ball in particular, and Fernandes was drawn in. Trent, much like Robertson on the far side, would have the room to receive. With Salah high up on the right-hand side at times, Shaw was unlikely to press Trent so the midfield of United would be drawn across instead in order to compensate for this shape. Since Nunez often operates in the spaces just outside of the box as a center forward, as well as Gakpo. Robertson had all the room on the left-hand side to then receive the switch and look to make the difference high up.  Seen in the image below:

United in possession:

In the first half from the goal kick as well as an open play, Liverpool’s pressing shape often had Gakpo deeper helping the midfield while Salah and Nunez would come in off the flank to press the center-backs. This leads to a similar situation for United where their fullbacks would potentially have that space.

If Liverpool had time to set up this shape whilst the ball was going wide, unlike United, Liverpool would be able to commit a midfielder to look to cover that fullback which would help to protect their own fullback. This was partially facilitated by Gakpo dropping deeper into the midfield. Gakpo’s deeper position allows Salah and Nunez ahead of him.

Henderson as soon as he sees the ball go wide and looks to aggressively press the fullback because Gakpo is accounted for pressing Casemiro through Varane is looking to make the overload. Seconds later, we see a similar on the other side with the same front three shapes but now Elliot moving wide on the right. As soon as Shaw receives the ball, Elliot presses because Gakpo is helping out the midfield.

Another reason Liverpool was able to do this more successfully is that when Liverpool was attacking, they had Gakpo in their ranks who would be dropping in to make the overload. However, Rashford is much less likely to do that so it was more of a genuine midfield 3 unless Fernandes decides to invert.

Especially in the first half, when Liverpool did not have the time to set up their defensive shape, we still saw United’s fullbacks having the space ahead. If Liverpool were pressing deeper, Shaw or Dalot could simply receive and look to drive higher up the pitch. But what we often commonly saw is that Shaw, in particular on this left-hand side, will push up high early to create a 2v1 against Trent. If Trent was drawn in, Fernandes could look to make the run in behind or provide an option for progression. But if Trent stays narrow, then Shaw will be able to receive and potentially cross.

In the second half, helped by having a one-goal lead, Klopp changed his defensive shape with Gakpo taking a more leading role. Salah and Nunez were more likely to drop wide to create more of a 4-5-1. This means the fullbacks were covered in this initial phase.

If United did play short, Liverpool would need an extra central presser. Rather than Salah coming in from wide, it would be Elliot who looked to press the center-back whilst using his cover shadow to prevent the ball from going into Casemiro.

But this new shape also contributes to one of Liverpool’s goals. Salah and Nunez are deafening wider, Elliot was the man applying the central pressure but also Salah is able to press Shaw. When Shaw looks to go central, Elliot intercepts.

In the transition, this also made it easier for Liverpool to execute their plan of hitting hard behind Shaw with Salah which they were looking to do the whole game. 

Conclusion

This day will go down in premier league history and is a major setback for Ten Haag’s side which had made such great progress of late. Liverpool hoped that this result would give them the necessary boost to carry their top 4 challenge for the rest of the season.

In the early 20th century, teams used a 2-3-5 formation, popularly known as the ‘pyramid formation’. This was a fairly basic formation where half-backs, forwards, and full-backs were arranged in a triangular shape, with the full-backs providing a defensive shield and the forwards pushing forward to score goals. This formation proved to be effective in the 1920s and 1930s, and England’s victory in the 1930 World Cup was largely attributed to its success. 

However, this gave way to a more defensive style of play by the late 1930s. The 4-2-4 formation, which involved the full-backs dropping back and the forwards pushing further forward, was developed by Hungarian coach Gustav Sebes. This created a more compact defensive structure, with two defensive players protecting the back line and two attacking players pushing forward to score. It proved to be a very successful approach, and Hungary won the 1952 Olympic Games using this formation. 

In the 1970s and 1980s, the focus shifted to a more attacking style of play. The Dutch ‘Total Football’ model employed by Ajax and the Dutch national team saw players switch positions at will, with full-backs pushing forward and midfielders dropping back to fill in the gaps. It was a revolutionary approach that demonstrated the importance of individual player flexibility, and it led to some of the most exciting football ever seen. 

In recent years, teams have become increasingly focused on possession and attacking football. The ‘tiki-taka’ approach, developed by Spanish teams such as Barcelona and Spain’s national team, relies heavily on short passing and movement, with players interchanging positions in order to create space for the attackers. The focus is on controlling the ball and opening up opportunities for the forwards to score. 

Such modern football tactics have been revolutionized in the past decade, with teams now looking to create more intricate and strategic formations in order to outwit the opposition. Teams have become more organized in their approach to the game, with an emphasis on having control of the ball and working the ball around the field in order to create attacking opportunities. 

At the heart of modern football tactics is the concept of team shape and structure. Teams work hard to maintain a shape when in possession and out of possession, ensuring there is always someone in a position to receive the ball, as well as always having options ahead and behind when playing out from the back. 

The use of wingers has increased in modern football, with teams looking to exploit the space out wide and create width, allowing the team to stretch the opposition and open up gaps in the middle of the pitch. The use of overlapping full-backs and inverted wingers has also become popular in recent years, as teams look to create even more chances in the final third. 

Using three at the back has also become increasingly popular, as it allows teams to have greater numbers in midfield and more stability in defence. Teams are also increasingly looking to press high up the field in order to win the ball back in advanced positions, with the use of a high-pressing game becoming more and more common. 

As a result, modern football tactics have become much more sophisticated in recent years. Teams are now operating with greater levels of organisation, with an emphasis on having control of the ball, creating chances in the final third, and pressing high up the field.

In conclusion, the development of tactics in football has been an ongoing process, and the modern game is vastly different from the one seen in the early 20th century. Teams are more organised, with specific roles and responsibilities assigned to each player. The tactical options available to teams are vast, and coaches are always striving to find new and innovative ways to outwit their opponents. Football tactics will continue to evolve as the game progresses, and new strategies will be developed to give teams the edge on the pitch.

From a young age, I began attending hour-long tennis lessons every Saturday. During these lessons, I learned all of the basic tennis moves: forehand, backhand, serve, volley, smash. My tennis skills soon blossomed, and with my height advantage and upper body strength, I was able to beat many of my fellow teammates with ease.

However, my tennis skills, as all things do, eventually plateaued, leaving me to be a rather mediocre tennis player. I didn’t care that much though, as I was still able to win at least half the time, and simply chalked it up to me having ‘good days’ and ‘bad days’; some days I would win spectacularly, some days I would struggle to even lay my racket on the ball. And I was okay with that. But soon the bad days began outnumbering the good days; fantastic victories were replaced by feeble losses, and I came to profoundly dislike those one hour sessions.

Then COVID came along and brought forth a complete shutdown of everything: schools, the club I frequented and with it, the tennis courts. I, having been in somewhat of a tennis slump, wasn’t particularly disappointed, and forgot about tennis for a very, very long time…

In the summer of 2022, I begrudgingly resumed tennis lessons. I was nervous about coming back – and rightfully so: it had been 2 years since I’d actually laid my hands upon a tennis racket, and I had only the vaguest memories of how to play.

But I was foolish to have worried – after all, I was just days away from meeting Coach Nikolaj, who would forever change the way I thought about tennis.

PART 2 – ADAPT TO YOUR ENVIRONMENT

Ever since resuming tennis lessons in August, I had been expecting a dramatic surge in my tennis skills, but as time went on, this was looking increasingly unlikely. I was frustrated. After all, I was doing everything my coach told me to do: bend your knees, tilt your racket, face sideways – but everytime I stepped onto the court and swung my racket, these tricks failed me. No matter how many new skills I acquired, my progress just wouldn’t budge. 

——–

It was on a brisk October morning when I learned my first true tennis lesson.

On that day, it was just Coach and me playing on that red clay tennis court. He stood on one side of the court, feeding me the ball, and I stood on the other side, trying, but unable to hit it back. Again, I was feeling frustrated. Every single tip and trick in my Coach’s playbook I had implemented into this match, but everytime my racket touched the ball, it was as if some black magic was causing it to go barrelling out of bounds, or worse, facefirst into the net. Nevertheless, I persisted, believing that sooner or later, it had to work. 

Seconds later, Coach Nikolaj arrived by my side, a mix of concern and frustration etched into his face. 

       “When I’m hitting the ball,” Coach said, slowly positioning the arm that held his tennis racket, “I need to be aware of what is different in this match versus other matches. Maybe my opponent likes hitting short and then long to make me run, so when I get the ball I hit to the side to make him run instead. Maybe my opponent always hits on the right side of the court, so by the time the ball comes, I am there and ready to hit the ball back.”

       “Tennis is a game of constant adaptation. You cannot expect every opponent to play the same, so every game you constantly need to be adjusting your body in order to achieve the results you want,” At that moment he dipped his racket so it barely grazed the grainy court and looked me right in the eye, “Okay,” he said, “Let’s rally.”

——–

As I sit here writing, many months after that brisk October morning, I feel that I cannot overstate just how important that moment was to me. In tennis, and in life, I had always felt that there were a set number of things you needed to do in any given situation in order to succeed. Do those things and: instant victory. But after hearing what my Coach said, I realized that it was a little more complicated than that. Every game, and every situation is different, and not appreciating those nuances is like trying to stuff a square peg into a round hole – it simply won’t work. So we learn to adapt. 

For example, I used to cram all my studying the week before a test, which worked well for me last year. However, I didn’t take into consideration the fact that last year I had more time to study, whereas this year I had to juggle homework and revision. Still, I used my old method, and it resulted in me having lower overall scores. But once I accepted these key differences, I began practicing material weeks before a test was announced, which resulted in me having higher overall test scores. 

For me at least, a person very much set in his ways, it’s hard to recognise these differences, and even harder to come up with solutions to deal with them. But I’m trying. I’m trying so hard to see why things that work in certain situations don’t work in others, and in the process I am, in a sense, rethinking how I live my life.

To honour and showcase their achievements, here are some of the teen athletes that made an exceptional impression at the Olympics this year:

1. Eileen Gu (China) 

Eileen Gu is an 18-year-old Chinese-American skier and part-time model. During this Winter Olympics, Gu competed in three events – the Women’s Halfpipe, Women’s Slopestyle, and Women’s Big Air – all three of which she managed to achieve an Olympic Medal in. Moreover, Gu set a world record back prior to the Winter Olympics in November 2021, being the first person ever to land a double cork 1440 in female freeskiing.

2. Alysa Liu (USA) 

Alysa Liu is a 16-year-old figure skater who represented the USA in the Beijing Olympics. As the youngest athlete representing Team USA this year, Liu finished in 7th place at the Ladies Single Figure Skating Finals, scoring a total of 208.95 points. Despite missing out on the medals, Liu continues to honour her achievement, stating that  her goal was to “stay in the moment and enjoy everything.” In addition to the achievements Liu has reaped in her successful athletic career so far, she too has graduated high school at the young age of 15!

3. Su Yiming (China) 

Su Yiming is an 18-year-old Chinese snowboarder. Su competed in two events – Men’s Snowboard Slopestyle and Men’s Snowboard Big Air. He earned a medal in both competitions, and also earned China’s first-ever Olympic Medal in Snowboarding. Besides Snowboarding, Su Yiming is also known for his acting as a young child. After winning two medals for China in men’s snowboarding, Su described these moments as a “dream come true, I think I’m crying like a little kid”.

4. Anezka Indrackova (Czech Republic)

Representing the Czech Republic aged 15, Anezka Indrackova was the youngest athlete competing at the Beijing Olympics. Participating in the Women’s Ski Jumping event, this was Indrackova’s first international event. She placed 30th at the finals.

In stark contrast to the achievements of these teenagers, however, a scandal unfolded in the figure skating arena. Kamila Valieva, a Russian 15-year-old figure skater, had tested positive for the drug trimetazidine, which helps athletes to improve endurance during their performance. Valieva claimed that the result was because of a mix-up with her grandfather’s medication. Numerous medical professionals believe otherwise.

Prior to the scandal, several Russian female skaters had been the centre of attention in the media for their Olympic successes as those who were able to score highly on advanced jumps were mainly young females because of their physical body shape. It is reported that many young Russian females that had won skating competitions suffered long and painful injuries, taking a toll on their long-term health. Thus, this shows how rigorous and dangerous the sport can be for many teenagers. Additionally, with young so many young teenagers competing, many are faced with social and mental pressure from society. This sparked attention towards the adults responsible for the young girls’ training, resulting in many accusing the adults of “evidence of abuse of a minor.” As a result, this led many skating officials to consider whether raising the age limit for Olympic competitions in the future would ensure the safety of these prospecting teenagers.   

Despite this controversial scandal, it is evident that the future looks bright for these teen athletes’ future careers, proving that age is certainly just a number. 

Written by Naomi Pang

1. Nathan Chen (USA)

After heartbreak at Pyeongchang 2018 with 17th place in the short program and a 5th place finish overall, Nathan Chen came to Beijing with the intention of overcoming the mental block that stopped him at the last Games and to finally live out his Olympic dream. With unmatched technical ability and an arsenal of quads, he obtained a score of 113.97 in his short program to ‘La Boheme’, breaking Yuzuru Hanyu’s previous world record of 111.82 from the 2020 Four Continents Championships. Even though  his PCS (performance component score) of 47.21 was subject to intense scrutiny by the figure skating community, Chen led the competition after the short program. He then performed his free program to ‘Rocketman’ by Elton John, landing a historic 5 clean quadruple jumps to claim Olympic gold. Once again, there was controversy over his PCS score.However, this time around, Chen’s artistry and musical interpretation were not the only things that attracted criticism; Twitter users also likened his costume to a “2014 Jansport galaxy bag”. Regardless, Chen achieved his goal of winning the Olympic title, and it is believed that the Yale student will soon retire to focus on his studies.

2. Yuma Kagiyama (JPN)

Reigning Youth Olympic champion Yuma Kagiyama obtained a new personal best score of 108.12 for second place in the short program. At 18, Kagiyama is already regarded as the future of Japanese men’s figure skating, but he doesn’t let any of the praise get to his head.Kagiyama also had an almost perfect free skate with just a step out on his quadruple loop jump. With jumps that seemed to float across the air and ridiculously deep edges, Kagiyama held on to second place with a total competition score of 310.05, a new personal best. He received a silver Olympic medal, a wonderful addition to his collection in his senior debut. He will surely be one to watch in the coming seasons as he continues to grow.

3. Shoma Uno (JPN)

Shoma Uno is the silver medallist from the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics, and was also the first skater to successfully land a quadruple flip in an international competition. Though his performances have been inconsistent in recent years, Uno managed to string together a clean short program, scoring 105.90 for third place. He then followed this up with a free skate to ‘Bolero’ (including the team event, this was the fourth Bolero program at this Olympic Games alone). Even with one fall and a hand on the ice on two jump elements, Uno held on to third place, receiving his second bronze medal in Beijing 2022 to add onto his medal from Japan’s third place finish at the team event. 

4. Yuzuru Hanyu (JPN)

However, Hanyu proved once again that he is deserving of his unofficial title of the greatest figure skater of all time by attempting the quadruple axel in his free skate. This jump is extremely difficult because of the precision required to gain both the height and the stability needed to rotate 4.5 times in the air. Additionally, landing this jump on one foot is extremely taxing on the body; the Washington Post estimates the force of the landing to be up to 10 times Hanyu’s body weight. While the jump was underrotated and caused him to fall, he made history, not for the first time in his career, as the first person to ever attempt this jump at an international competition. Hanyu has stated that this has been a lifelong goal of his, saying “I’ve been kind of wanting to do (the quad Axel) since I was a kid. My mentor and coach back then kept telling me I’d do it one day and I’ve been working on it ever since.’’ Chasing after a childhood dream instead of securing an Olympic medal is no easy decision to make, and Hanyu shows once more that he is still pushing the boundaries of the sport. His performance at this year’s Olympics is perhaps the greatest testament to his character and who he is as an athlete; to him, striving for his own dreams is more important than any medal.  

5. Cha Jun-hwan (KOR)

At the age of 20, Cha is already at his second Olympic games: he was 15th at Pyeongchang 2018 as the youngest competitor there. Winning the ISU Four Continents Championships just over 2 weeks before the Beijing Olympics, he is the most successful men’s figure skater from South Korea, and competes with an extremely rare jump combination in his programs: the triple lutz-triple loop combo. Cha also has incredible artistry for his young age, with many praising his transitions and music interpretation in his ‘Fate of the Clockmaker/Cloak and Dagger’ short program. These past 2 years have been difficult for him as he has had to train back home in Korea due to the Covid-19 pandemic while his coach, Brian Orser, stayed in Toronto. However, Cha rose to the occasion, skating almost flawlessly at the Olympics with just one fall in his opening quad toe in his free program. He ended up 5th after the free skate, with a new season’s best in the short, the free, as well as in the combined total. 

6. Jason Brown (USA)

Brown is known as an artist on the ice, with deep edges and incredible skating skills. His Olympic programs set to ‘Sinnerman’ and ‘Schindler’s List’ are both crowd favourites, and have been reused from previous seasons. Brown did not attempt any quadruple jumps at the Beijing Olympic games, and showed the audience that jumps and technical ability are not the most important thing in figure skating. Though there was controversy about his selection on the Olympic team over 17 year old US National silver medallist Ilia Malinin, Brown skated cleanly for a total competition score of 281.24 and a sixth-place finish, quelling any doubts about his suitability for the team. 

7. Daniel Grassl (ITA)

As the world number one prior to the Olympics, the 19 year old Italian skater is one of only three men’s skaters who took the risk to jump the incredibly difficult and high-scoring quadruple lutz at the Games. However, he had to climb his way back up the Olympic standings from 12th place after the short program because despite skating cleanly, judges gave him an edge call on his lutzes (the lutz is jumped from an outside edge but Grassl’s blade often dips to the inside on takeoff) and he also received low PCS. His low scores in the short program didn’t affect him, however, because he skated a new season’s best score of 187.43 in the free program to bring his standing up to 7th place overall. 

8. Evgeni Semenenko (ROC)

Honourable Mentions: 

Jin Boyang (CHN) – 9th

• He was the first man to land the quad lutz-triple toe loop combination
• 4th at 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics
• He has performed inconsistently since the 2018 Pyeongchang Games but he achieved two of his seasonal bests at Beijing – being able to show the world one his best performances at his home Olympics was very important to him.

Mark Kondratiuk (ROC) – 12th

• He had to compete 4 times in 6 days, and was exhausted by the time he had to compete in the individual event.
• Kondratiuk was praised by many for staying dedicated to the performance until the end (despite his aforementioned exhaustion) and putting everything he had into it, even when he was tired and knew he wouldn’t place well.
• His free program to music from ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ went viral on Twitter and TikTok, where he was nicknamed the ‘Russian theatre kid’.

Donovan Carrillo (MEX) – 22nd

Written by Chelsea Tse