From Valieva To Petrosian, Controversial Coach Eteri Tutberidze Returns To Olympic Ice
BEIJING, CHINA – FEBRUARY 10: Head coach of Russian Olympic Committee Eteri Tutberidze watches the training of Kamila Valieva who competes in the Figure Skating Event at the Beijing 2022 Olympic Games, trains in Beijing, China, 10 February 2022. (Photo by Dimitris Isevidis/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
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Bleached blonde hair, a piercing gaze, and a new adolescent prodigy at her side.
She’s coached the last two Olympic champions in women’s figure skating. She’s guided Eastern Europe’s preeminent teenage athletes to stardom. And she’s watched, unscathed, as the same athletes crash and burn.
Highly controversial Russian-Georgian figure skating coach Eteri Tutberidze is back coaching athletes on Olympic ice. For as long as Russian figure skaters have dominated the women’s competition, Tutberidze has been the puppeteer behind the scenes of stardom.
Remember Yulia Lipnitskaya, the 15-year-old ‘girl in red’ who stole hearts at the 2014 Sochi Olympics? She was coached by Eteri. Recall Russian duo Alina Zagitova and Evgenia Medvedeva fighting head-to-head for gold at PyeongChang 2018? They won Olympic gold and silver – and were both coached by Eteri.
And how could we forget Kamila Valieva? Regarded as arguably the greatest talent the sport had ever seen, Valieva arrived at the 2022 Beijing Olympics as the top-billing star of figure skating. She left Beijing with no medals, a doping scandal, and a looming ISU suspension.
The infamous coach continues to rake in accolades. While Tutberidze accumulates state honors and the brightest figure skating pupils, her former athletes suffer the cost of their European, World, and Olympic titles.
Golden Careers Cut Short
Tutberidze’s methods are widely scrutinized because her athletes’ careers are largely ephemeral. In what Business Insider labeled the “Eteri expiration date,” her athletes are often forced into early retirement due to injury, ending careers in their mid to late teens.
“Eteri’s students never live past 18,” figure skating expert Nelson Monfort said in 2022. “They arrive one moment and disappear the next…they’re like disposable tissues, used for a year or two and then thrown away.”
Zagitova, the 2018 Olympic champion, retired just a year after winning Olympic gold. At 18 years old, she was already behind – Eteri’s newest stars were jumping quads, and Zagitova could ‘only’ complete triples. The 2018 silver medalist, Medvedeva, retired due to pain stemming from chronic back injuries.
GANGNEUNG, SOUTH KOREA – FEBRUARY 23: Gold medalist Alina Zagitova, silver medalist Evgenia Medvedeva both from Olympic Athlete from Russia with their coaches Eteri Tutberidze, Sergei Dudakov (left) following the Figure Skating Ladies Free program on day fourteen of the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympic Games at Gangneung Ice Arena on February 23, 2018 in Gangneung, South Korea. (Photo by Jean Catuffe/Getty Images)
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2014 Olympic team gold medalist Yulia Lipnitskaya retired at 19 due to injuries and after a long-winded battle with anorexia. 2019 World silver medalist Elizabet Tursynbaeva ended her career due to chronic back injuries after becoming the first woman to land a quad at a world championship.
Junior world silver medalist Darya Usacheva returned from a 2021 competition in a wheelchair. She retired months later at 16 years old.
In 2020, the International Skating Union (ISU) recognized Tutberidze as the federation’s “best coach.” The ISU at the time described her as a “talented coach”, who has “given so much strength and dedication to her athletes this season.”
Critiques and theories surrounding the “Eteri expiration date” often pertain to a combination of malnutrition, overtraining, and the manipulation of young bodies.
Controversial Training Methods
All of Eteri’s Olympic medal-winning skaters have been in their teens. The 2022 Olympic “Quad squad–” Kamila Valieva, Anna Shcherbakova, and Alexandra Trusova – were all teenagers with uncanny jumping ability.
“It is the little girl bodies that allow that type of rotation to happen,” Olympic champion Robin Cousins remarked in 2022. Training included maintaining and optimizing their prepubescent bodies as efficiently as possible.
Medvedeva spoke of needing to be as “dry” and light as possible in preparation for competitions. Zagitova depicted puberty as figure skating’s unofficial death knell, synonymous with “becoming fat” and losing one’s skating ability (Vox).
Skaters have reported “not being able to drink water” prior to and during competitions. Reports from 2014 suggested that Tutberidze’s team attempt to delay puberty by feeding athletes only “powdered nutrients” or Lupron, a puberty blocker known to induce menopause.
Valieva Doping Scandal Takes Center Stage
Further, when 15-year-old Kamila Valieva tested positive for a banned substance just weeks before the Olympics, many in the figure skating community were thoroughly unsurprised.
“When Valieva’s name came up, I wouldn’t say people weren’t surprised, but let’s just say these things have been circulating in the sport for years,” Romain Haguenauer, former coach of ice dancing champions Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron, said.
Images of the sobbing 15-year-old headlined worldwide media, and the teenager’s Olympic dream turned into a four-year ban from the sport.
BEIJING, CHINA – FEBRUARY 07: Kamila Valieva of Team ROC reacts during the Women Single Skating Free Skating Team Event on day three of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games at Capital Indoor Stadium on February 07, 2022 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Catherine Ivill/Getty Images)
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Though Eteri and her team maintained Valieva’s and their own innocence, the teenager paid the price – perhaps with her career.
Two-time Olympic champion Katarina Witt spoke scathingly of Tutberidze’s team, calling for the “responsible adults” to be “banned from the sport forever.” Though Tutberidze and her coaching team were investigated by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), no evidence of wrongdoing was found.
Instead, the ISU raised the minimum age for senior competition to 17 to ‘protect child athletes.’ While her teenage prodigy served her ban, Tutberidze continued coaching.
This month, she is back at the Olympic Games in Milan, coaching Georgian and Russian athletes. Notably, she secured her Olympic accreditation through the Georgian federation, a move that allows her to stand rink-side despite the heavy scrutiny surrounding her Russian “Neutral” pupils.
Though WADA President Witold Banka said earlier this month that Eteri’s presence made him “uncomfortable,” an ISU-constituted AIN Review Committee screened and approved Tutberidze’s attendance at the games.
“WADA did not accredit the coach. It is not our decision,” Banka added. “The coach is here. An investigation found no evidence that this particular person engaged in a doping process so there is no legal basis to exclude her from the Olympic Games.”
“But, of course, if you ask my personal feeling, I don’t feel comfortable with her presence here at the Olympic Games,” he said.
Tutberidze’s New Prodigy In Milan
On Tuesday, Eteri’s newest prodigy will take to the ice for the women’s singles event in Milan: 18-year-old Authorized Neutral athlete (AIN) from Russia, Adelia Petrosian. As the only skater in the field capable of a quadruple jump (and a triple axel), Petrosian is expected to contend for the podium.
Despite swirling rumors of a persistent groin injury that hampered her training last month, Petrosian appeared confident at Monday’s final practice. “The mood is excellent,” she told reporters through a translator.
However, Petrosian’s several falls during training left onlookers questioning if history is repeating itself.
When a popular Figure Skating website asked Eteri to describe her coaching philosophy, the coach offered the following:
“Living the days with the maximum benefit for business…give every particular day all your strength. Leave nothing for tomorrow which can be done today. Why? Because it is such “desperate” skaters who seriously want to change their lives, who work with amazing seriousness.”
“Personally, most of all I like to take athletes who are ‘close to despair.”
BEIJING, CHINA – FEBRUARY 14: Eteri Tutberidze, coach of Russia of Kamila Valieva among others attends the Ice Dance Free Dance on day ten of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games at Capital Indoor Stadium on February 14, 2022 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Jean Catuffe/Getty Images)
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