I have been thinking about Kanysheva‘s situation ever since I‘ve heard of the news and honestly, the conclusion I‘ve come to is nothing short of depressing. Imo, Alena was failed utterly and thoroughly by the people in charge of her. Why?
Well, if we take her word for the date of the injury, and this happened in November 2018, then...
1. She most likely hid the injury and kept training regularly in Panova‘s team (as Anna Kuzmenko‘s mum wrote on Instagram that no one in the team knew about it). This means that, first of all, no one in Panova‘s team noticed a severely injured athlete for several months (or deliberately ignored it which is even worse) AND let her compete at multiple events she could have withdrawn from. Then, of course, she moved to Eteri and, as we all know, started to train a quad there. Whether she wanted to and the coaches just let her do it, is completely irrelevant. Fact is that she was training a highly dangerous element on a body that had not yet had the time to recover and no one stopped her. No coaches, no parents.
2. Panova knew about the injury and still let her compete.
I do not even want to get into the possibility that the date she mentioned wasn‘t correct and she’s trying (or made) to save someone’s reputation as my main point stands anyway:
Athletes drop out all the time. Not everybody - in fact, most - do not make it to the top of their sport. But in this case we have a 14 year old teenager who was seriously injured and should not have been in the state to either participate in multiple events or train ultra c elements. The move to withdraw her was made way too late and the damage was already done by then.
I can only say that, right now, I‘m thoroughly disappointed. I hope that Alena will look back at her career as a singles skater and not feel bitterness because honestly, I, as a fan, can say that I am right now. Hopefully, her “dream“ of landing a jump for an Instagram video was worth all this... (and no, don‘t tell me that an athlete who‘s given up everything to their sport only dreams of landing a specific element not even during a competition)
Imo, her injury was managed wrongly from the very beginning and, for me at least, there will always be the ”what could have been if...?“ I wish her all the best and hope she succeeds as an Ice Dancer. She deserves it. This is the only thing that makes me feel slightly better. At least she will not leave the sport altogether.
Good luck, Alena!!
You’re perfectly right. And unfortunately she’s not the first to leave single skating for back injury.
And ice dancers are prone to back injuries and back pains too: the first Khaliavin’s partner, with whom he won a JGP or a JW, had to leave skating completely, because of back injury, at 16-17 years, if I remember correctly.
So, I’m worried we won’t see her on the ice anymore.
most likely Konstantinova will also compete at finals. 
