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Post: Anniversary of the Beijing Golden Commander. What happened to the dream team skaters?

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Just a year ago, the Russian team won the team figure skating tournament at the Beijing Olympics. There are still happy shots from the flower ceremony held right after the competition. In the hands of the games’ mascots – the premium Bing Dunduni – plush pandas. Satisfied smiles hide masks. Our athletes were the strongest. Although the tournament did not go so smoothly, in the end they were nine points ahead of the USA team and 11 points ahead of the Japanese team.

Many events have happened since then – good and bad, reversible and irreparable. RIA Novosti Sport tells the participants of that dream team where they are now and what happened to them during the year.

Gold medal winners of the Russian national team (ROC team) in the team competitions in figure skating at the XXIV Winter Olympic Games in Beijing - RIA Novosti, 1920, 02/07/2023

Kamila Valieva

For Camila, the Olympic tale ended at the same time as the team tournament. The very next day, a doping scandal swirled around him based on the results of trimetazidine found in the December sample. Press hype, moral pressure, suspension from the competition and subsequent admission only after hours of humiliating questioning by the commission. She turned out to be the winner of the team tournament, the gold medal of the whole team, the beloved girl of the whole country and the research topic of the whole world – for example, a particularly valuable butterfly species. In just a few days, he became an outcast and the object of ridicule and bullying. Instead of a victory, or at least an even fight in the individual tournament – a series of mistakes and only fourth place. After Alexandra Trusova and Anna Shcherbakova and Japanese Kaori Sakamoto.

There was no increase in clarity in the “Valieva case” during this year. The athlete himself and his representatives did not make a public statement on this matter. RUSADA’s investigation did not prove that Camila was guilty of doping, and canceled her result in the only competition – the Russian Championship, where the banned sample was taken. WADA was not satisfied with RUSADA’s decision and appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, so a new trial awaits us.

As for Camila herself, she had a hard time. Still, this story didn’t break him. He continues to compete, growing and trying to win back the winning jump set. Valieva grows up before our eyes not only physically, but also morally – she learns to take a philosophically calm attitude to everything that happens to her.

She is constantly torn by businessmen from figure skating – in particular, Tatyana Navka led her to the main role in the ice show. So far Camila manages to combine everything, but at some point, it seems, you still have to make a choice.

Anastasia Mishina and Alexander Gallyamov

Thanks to their great consistency, Mishina/Gallyamov earned the right to represent the Russian double skating team alone in the team tournament. We can say that this quality is still with them – all this season the couple showed quite high consistent results with a slight decrease in the Russian Championship. They perfectly lost to their main rivals – Alexandra Boikova and Dmitry Kozlovsky.

It is not clear how coaches Tamara Moskvina and Artur Minchuk saved the students from the typical post-Olympic syndrome, Nastya and Sasha coped with copper pipes with dignity. This is despite winning team gold as well as a personal bronze in combat at their first Olympics. But there is no fatigue, loss of motivation, and distraction for external matters. They’re still greedy for medals and education. Thanks to his Olympic experience, he only got stronger psychologically.

Perhaps Mishina/Gallyamov are the only ones in the entire gold team who did not experience major changes in their non-sports lives after the Olympics. They no longer go to parties and events, they are not promoted by a special agent, after all, they are not married and unmarried. And even without their participation, ice shows are held. Thus, Nastya and Sasha tacitly make it clear that above all they are active athletes and are ready to run there whenever the door to international starts opens for Russia.

Mark Kondratyuk

In the 2021/22 season, Mark Kondratyuk unexpectedly for many became the number one of the Russian men’s team. His psychological stability, combined with his tenacity in jumps and his coolly conceived and staged programs, allowed Mark to unleash his artistic talent. He gave all his strength to the team tournament, where our positions were quite vulnerable, so he did not have enough passion for the individual championship – he took only 15th place.

After the Olympics, Mark, like all our athletes, was excluded from participation in international competitions and did not go to the World Championships. He’s played on Ice shows, captained Channel One’s commercials, and has generally gotten used to the role of everyone’s favourite. But he continued to train – of course, there was no question of retirement after success.

This season, Mark still squeaks due to back problems – especially because of this, he missed the Russian championship and was not able to defend his title last year.

And after the Olympics, Mark began dating Russian Rocket – figure skater Alexandra Trusova. Social networks are full of cute photos of a couple in love, and Sasha periodically, to the delight of fans, makes statements such as “I always liked men’s skating more, but now I only support one athlete.”

Mark also supports his girlfriend in everything. Including the choice to replace her coach, Sasha left Eteri Tutberidze for Svetlana Sokolovskaya, who had coached Kondratyuk for her entire career.

Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov

For this couple, the 2022 Olympics were supposed to be the highlight of their career. At the time of the games, Nikita was already 30 years old, Victoria – 26. In fact, except for the Olympic, and even then they won all the main prizes of important starts with one caveat – Katsalapov’s gold team and personal bronzes still sang in a duet with Elena Ilinykh. But of course, they wanted everything to be theirs – something out of the ordinary.

The team gold was repeated thanks to Beijing, but in the individual championship they even managed to rise from bronze to silver. Sinitsina / Katsalapov actually just lost to the invincible French.

They didn’t make any official statements about the end of their careers, just taking a break to recuperate. It’s somehow wrong to retire great athletes, so we’re not going to do that, we’re just making an assumption ourselves. Now Victoria and Nikita have a lot of exciting things to do off track, so there’s no reason yet for them to return to big sports. Also, Russian athletes cannot participate in international competitions. But if suddenly Sinitsina / Katsalapov want to break up and go back to the ice, they will give the green light. We have no other comparable pair.

Otherwise, Victoria and Nikita have a great life. They compete on the show starring in Ice Age, and even Nikita, paired with Liza Arzamasova, won. They are busy promoting their own name and making money. And, of course, to the delight of many, they played a beautiful wedding in the end.

Fate of medals

Throughout this year, there was no ceremony of awarding medals to the winners and winners of team competitions. The organizers clearly relied on the speedy review of the results after the doping scandal and the cancellation of Kamila Valieva’s points, which would radically change the results. Therefore, they were in no hurry to give the gold to the Russians – after the cancellation, the US team would become the Olympic champion.

So for now, all participants in the tournament have only empty boxes and the same Bing Dunduni at home. American figure skaters even held a rally recently – they took pictures with empty boxes and talked about how unfair it seemed to them to wait so long for the awards they deserved.

Now everyone is in the same predicament. All that remains is to wait for the decision of the Sports Arbitration Court. In its appeal, WADA demands that Valiyeva be disqualified for four years and the results of the team tournament be cancelled. Still, we hope that won’t happen.

Source: Ria

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