What is the most heartbreaking moment in skating competition | Page 10 | Golden Skate

What is the most heartbreaking moment in skating competition

ladyjane

Medalist
Joined
Jun 26, 2012
Country
Netherlands
I've seen too many heartbreak moments in skating competitions, but strangely perhaps, I felt the most for Alina Zagitova last year at Worlds. Of course, she had already won everything until then, so what actually is there to feel sorry about, but I was thinking about being only 15, winning everything and then suddenly your body is not doing what you want for whatever reason. When you're that young, that is terrible. I suppose we've all experienced that kind of thing in our youth, and also how awful it felt in the time.
 

flanker

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 10, 2018
Country
Czech-Republic
True... more "infuriating" than heartbreaking really.

If there is something infuriating for me, those are continuous attacks on Adelina (call that by true name - cyberbullying), incl. death threats - some people have really curious imagine of justice and can't accept reality.
 

Skater Boy

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 24, 2012
Blood, sweat, tears, health, both ankles, his home, his native language, his native culture, a childhood, an adulthood, relationships, friendships, family...the list goes on...

Well but Hanyu has two individual medals and while he worked hard so did Fernandez, Chan etc. Life isn't fair and fairness is only in the eye of the beholder often depends if you are ie. a Hanyu fan, Chan fan or whoever. Because we all ahve differentopinions and in some case we are fans of certain skaters weewill probably never agree. But I thinkBrion Orser not getting an Olympic gold and Michelle Kwan and Irina Slutskaya Evgena are heartbreaking at competition losses. Yuna and Hanyu at least got OGM. But Mao, Evgenia, Patrick,Michelle, Irina are imho worthy to gold so seeing them not do it or get it at the olympics is heart breaking. I would add Randy and Tai too as I saw their story and Krylova and Oksianikov as their career ended due to injury.
 

Cdimop

Rinkside
Joined
Mar 15, 2014
The Kurt Browning fail at the Olympics was also the first thing I thought of. He was in tears after his short program.
 

lyverbird1

Final Flight
Joined
Apr 18, 2015
Can't believe nobody has mentioned Chen Lu's SP at 97 worlds. From recently having been a world champion and Olympic medallist to not even qualifying for the LP was a devastating shock. She seemed to have been going through such turmoil with the Chinese federation at that time. It's a real marker of character though that she was able to get it together and come back for another Olympic bronze medal the following year.
 

yume

🍉
Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 11, 2016
I don't find a so-called more matured and more decorated skater failing to win Olympic Gold heart-breaking at all. I remember Michelle Kwan gave comment on Sochi Men Free event saying Patrick spent so many years "blood, sweat and tears" just for an Olympic moment but lost to Hanyu with 2 falls. Hanyu started skating at four, he also worked for 15 years "blood, sweat and tears" for his Olympic moment.
Similarly, Zagitova won PeyongChang fair and square. If Medvedeva had had won that day, would people had felt sorry for Zagitova because she performed better but didn't win ? Or just because she was a senior just coming out of junior circut then she didn't deserve as much as other skaters who has spent more years in senior? At the end of the day, you don't deserve gold. You earn it.
This.
I disagree when people say x worked more than y for that gold so he/she deserve it more. They didn't work more, they were simply born first. And they got the opporunity to show their skills first. Winning everything without having to compete against those skaters who came to defeat them in seniors.
 

NoviceFan

Triple Something-Triple Looping
Medalist
Joined
Sep 21, 2018
Well but Hanyu has two individual medals and while he worked hard so did Fernandez, Chan etc. Life isn't fair and fairness is only in the eye of the beholder often depends if you are ie. a Hanyu fan, Chan fan or whoever. Because we all ahve differentopinions and in some case we are fans of certain skaters weewill probably never agree. But I thinkBrion Orser not getting an Olympic gold and Michelle Kwan and Irina Slutskaya Evgena are heartbreaking at competition losses. Yuna and Hanyu at least got OGM. But Mao, Evgenia, Patrick,Michelle, Irina are imho worthy to gold so seeing them not do it or get it at the olympics is heart breaking. I would add Randy and Tai too as I saw their story and Krylova and Oksianikov as their career ended due to injury.

I agree with this. Being heartbroken for someone does not mean you are rendering judgment on whether the other person who won did so rightfully. This is not a "who should have won" thread.
 

Amei

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 11, 2013
Todd Eldredge ending his career in the quad era where I feel his skating got a bit overlooked - I think it was at his last Nationals where Dick Button described him as a pair of loafers.

Mikhail Kolyada's European FS this year - I couldn't help but cringe when he hurt his wrist and then broke a fall a bit with it later; I did some significant damage to my wrist with landing on it and all I could think of after his second fall was the golf ball that formed on my wrist after I broke mine.
 

TallyT

Record Breaker
Joined
Apr 23, 2018
Country
Australia
Heartbreaking is, after all, very subjective and very immediate, in the moment. Yuzu at Boston, Patrick and Javi at Sochi, Nathan Chen's SP at the PC Olympics (would any of his fans not say their hearts were in pieces at the end and before the FS?) they have all done great things since and the pain became a memory, but at the actual moments, the heartbreak was very real and pretty jagged.

Of the Yuzu-shaped cracks in my way-too-soft heart (apart from Boston 16 which I mentioned before), two come to mind that other people might find really minor and frivolous because.... well, both times he won. But still, but still...

First 2013 nationals, when a boy of what, 17 or 18? - had the biggest win of his career spoilt by jealousy and abuse from some of the crowd. The fact that he did win and we all know where that led for him may soften the edges of the crack but I still avoid rewatching that ceremony because I hurt for that kid on the podium, upset and trying not to let it show. Yep, the first time watching it well and truly broke my heart, and how fans at the time and without a crystal ball didn't cry for him... And then moving waaaaaay forward, another serious crack happened last year at Rostelecom watching Yuzuru apologising to TAT for not skating Origin - his tribute to Plushy and to Russia - as perfectly as he wanted to so much. Never mind that he was seriously injured, was still brilliant and still won. The universe yet again seemed out to dump on him when it mattered, and his protective (but for good reason universe!) fans suffered along with him. And that's just one skater, with maybe more lows but unquestionably more and greater highs than pretty much everyone else around. How fans of even less lucky and more fate-battered skaters (Kolyada?) mend their hearts I do not know.

(PS - And I know the question was about actual competition, but anyone who can watch clips of the Japanese team being shattered but stoic at the end of the post-earthquake WTT and not feel more cracks must have a heart of pure concrete.)
 

doublequad

On the Ice
Joined
Aug 4, 2018
carolina kostner botching her fs at worlds 2018 on home soil when it was basically hers to win
that was really painful to watch
 

Winnie_20

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 24, 2013
I only have vague (thankfully) memories of Anna Pogorilya completely bombing a program. After one fall, she just lay on the ice for so long (it felt like a lifetime to me). That was the most gut-wrenching thing ever.
 

DSQ

Record Breaker
Joined
Apr 14, 2018
Country
United-Kingdom
Well but Hanyu has two individual medals and while he worked hard so did Fernandez, Chan etc. Life isn't fair and fairness is only in the eye of the beholder often depends if you are ie. a Hanyu fan, Chan fan or whoever. Because we all ahve differentopinions and in some case we are fans of certain skaters weewill probably never agree. But I thinkBrion Orser not getting an Olympic gold and Michelle Kwan and Irina Slutskaya Evgena are heartbreaking at competition losses. Yuna and Hanyu at least got OGM. But Mao, Evgenia, Patrick,Michelle, Irina are imho worthy to gold so seeing them not do it or get it at the olympics is heart breaking. I would add Randy and Tai too as I saw their story and Krylova and Oksianikov as their career ended due to injury.

Completely agree, when it comes to competition very rarely does anyone “deserve” to win. Life isn’t fair and your point of view will heavily change how you view the fairness in any situation.

That said for me it’s always a little heartbreaking to see a skater like Tuktamysheva not make the Olympic team - such is life.
 

karne

in Emergency Backup Mode
Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 1, 2013
Country
Australia
Seeing Josh bawling in the kiss and cry, sobbing about how he couldn't walk...that was heartbreaking.

Hearing Zakrasjek say so condescendingly "aren't you glad you did that?"...that's just enraging.
 

iluvtodd

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 5, 2004
Country
United-States
Todd Eldredge ending his career in the quad era where I feel his skating got a bit overlooked - I think it was at his last Nationals where Dick Button described him as a pair of loafers.

Actually, IIIRC, Terry Gannon said that, but Dick Button agreed with him, saying something like "That's a wonderful description!"

Amei, so sorry that you broke your wrist & that that happened to you (& Mikhail)! :cry: Hopefully by now, you are both healed from it!
 

EyesOfLove

On the Ice
Joined
Dec 5, 2009
No sooner had the final result of the ladies event at SLC been announced than the camera showed Sarah Hughes and Robin Wagner felicitating their victory in a ferment and Michelle Kwan not coming out of the closed door to show herself.
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 25, 2013
The heart breaking moment of this for me was... that after she left ice... crowds started screeching "ROSSSIJAAAA" as if it was an icehockey game. Not just losing unfairly, but also not getting the deserved appreciation... it must have felt horrible for Yuna.

Thankfully, she is still appreciated and loved now.

This was then "heartbreaking" for every non-Russian skater or team that did well in Sochi. They were lukewarm when it came to Kostner too, and I felt bad for her. They were hoping for the visiting skaters to mess up (cheered when they thought Kim messed up her 2nd lutz or when the German pair fell).
And let's not forget a bunch of them dipping from the men's SP when Plushenko dropped out.

Such an obnoxious, exceedingly biased crowd.
 

Triple loop

Rinkside
Joined
Aug 19, 2018
There are several heartbreaking moments and they involve two female skaters. Michelle Kwan's fall during her 2002 Olympic FS program and then seeing her on the podium with tears were disheartening. I couldn't sleep that entire night. I was in such disbelief that Sarah Hughes had won. The 1998 Olympics was painful but 2002 was the worst.

In the 2014 Olympics, I felt so bad for Mao Asada falling on her triple axel in her short program and ending up in 16th place. Mao is such a wonderful skater with her mastery of the jumps and her expressiveness. She skates with heart. I cried when she sobbed after her perfect free skating program.
I miss both of these classy ladies.
 

melgirl25

Medalist
Joined
Aug 23, 2018
Jeremy Abbott after his free program at worlds to exogenesis saying in the kiss and cry what sounds like “it’s not enough” a couple times [emoji22]
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 25, 2013
I only have vague (thankfully) memories of Anna Pogorilya completely bombing a program. After one fall, she just lay on the ice for so long (it felt like a lifetime to me). That was the most gut-wrenching thing ever.

Oh gosh. Yeah, Anna Pogorilaya is definitely up there on the heartbreaking list after her Worlds 2017 FS. That was supremely difficult to watch and felt so bad for her.
 
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