- Joined
- Dec 9, 2019
uh... I am not related to FS (I started watching following FS because of Eteri and watching FS after seeing Quad Queen 
) but I have some experience with sports in General (in a post soviet country) and federations and this may be bit hard for many westerners to understand.
Sports in the western world is mostly commercial, i.e sport generates money it lives with, in such environment only things what matter are results and show, any organization working in sports need to have winners and preferably,winners who draw views.
In the most post soviet states and ex second world countries sport lives on money given by the government and in case of popular sports (football, hockey, fs,biathlon to name few in Russia's case) the flow of money is almost constant. In other words, for example Russian cross country skiing federation needs to put as many medals to the sport's minister's table as possible or they will get less money next year, Russian football federation can lose everything there is to lose and they will still get financed more or less by some amount of money.
(this post is about general situation and not exactly about FS,but if anybody is interested, you can see who sponsor's Navka's show for example, and then who owns these companies... you will quickly get to either state or some businessman close to state)
In such cases, assuming modern reminiscent of the maid of Orleans doesn't somehow find her way to chairmanship of federation, main aim of federation, as amazing and unbelievable as it may sound, is not getting best results possible but... staying under the radar while...distributing the money received from the government.
Pretty much every such sport in countries where government finances it (I have no idea how is it in China, but at least is is true in Post Soviet states) have a cancer, unremovable,unbeatable cancer in the name of Accomplished veterans. These are the people who hold influential positions and form an unbreakable chain: they have most (if not all) of votes and they can and do cover each other. These people have it fine, all of them receive fair share of government's money and make no mistake they absolutely do not want any 'new' player to enter their game. I have seen a case where influential people (not in Russia and not in FS, just an example to highlight how crazy it can get) did their best and succeeded in kicking wealthy investor out of their sports, sort of if FA tried to kick Roman Abramovich or Man City owners out of British football.
For these people, Eteri isn't a successful coach who gets medals to their country, they don't see Eteri as a coach of Yulia, Zhenya, Alina, Anna, Sasha, Aliona,Kamilla... they do not see Eteri as a coach who revolutionized ladies single's skating,but as a person who broke through gates of their backyard, disturbed their peaceful existence and most importantly, took fair share of money they deserve. Make no mistake,if these people can choose between Russia going medal-less in next 5 Olympics in FS and between Eteri sticking around, majority of these ' respectable people' will choose the first.
This is why Alina, a girl who never in her public life, did anything wrong, got so few love from 'legends of Russian figure skating',well now suddenly all of them care about her but not hard to see why. This is why Team Eteri, a Team which single handedly made Russia dominant force in Ladies FS gets so much hate.
I have no idea what will happen at nationals, I won't be surprised to see edge calls, URs and 0 GOEs all across 3A-s protocols and I won't be surprised if I see fair judging either, problem with trying to get Eteri out of the game is that she is simply too big now and doing it Under the radar (these people absolutely love term 'our (put sport here) family', yeah, they seriously think that it is their family, they need to get all that government money and people doesn't have right to know or ask questions . It's their family matter and we 'mere commoners' don't have right to say anything) is hard to impossible.
By her mere existence, Eteri went against that group of people and after that post, cold war which you could feel was going behind the closed doors spilled into open... I have no idea how will all these battles end, I just hope that kids who have been working since 3-4 years old to achieve something in sports wont be caught into crossfire.
) but I have some experience with sports in General (in a post soviet country) and federations and this may be bit hard for many westerners to understand. Sports in the western world is mostly commercial, i.e sport generates money it lives with, in such environment only things what matter are results and show, any organization working in sports need to have winners and preferably,winners who draw views.
In the most post soviet states and ex second world countries sport lives on money given by the government and in case of popular sports (football, hockey, fs,biathlon to name few in Russia's case) the flow of money is almost constant. In other words, for example Russian cross country skiing federation needs to put as many medals to the sport's minister's table as possible or they will get less money next year, Russian football federation can lose everything there is to lose and they will still get financed more or less by some amount of money.
(this post is about general situation and not exactly about FS,but if anybody is interested, you can see who sponsor's Navka's show for example, and then who owns these companies... you will quickly get to either state or some businessman close to state)
In such cases, assuming modern reminiscent of the maid of Orleans doesn't somehow find her way to chairmanship of federation, main aim of federation, as amazing and unbelievable as it may sound, is not getting best results possible but... staying under the radar while...distributing the money received from the government.
Pretty much every such sport in countries where government finances it (I have no idea how is it in China, but at least is is true in Post Soviet states) have a cancer, unremovable,unbeatable cancer in the name of Accomplished veterans. These are the people who hold influential positions and form an unbreakable chain: they have most (if not all) of votes and they can and do cover each other. These people have it fine, all of them receive fair share of government's money and make no mistake they absolutely do not want any 'new' player to enter their game. I have seen a case where influential people (not in Russia and not in FS, just an example to highlight how crazy it can get) did their best and succeeded in kicking wealthy investor out of their sports, sort of if FA tried to kick Roman Abramovich or Man City owners out of British football.
For these people, Eteri isn't a successful coach who gets medals to their country, they don't see Eteri as a coach of Yulia, Zhenya, Alina, Anna, Sasha, Aliona,Kamilla... they do not see Eteri as a coach who revolutionized ladies single's skating,but as a person who broke through gates of their backyard, disturbed their peaceful existence and most importantly, took fair share of money they deserve. Make no mistake,if these people can choose between Russia going medal-less in next 5 Olympics in FS and between Eteri sticking around, majority of these ' respectable people' will choose the first.
This is why Alina, a girl who never in her public life, did anything wrong, got so few love from 'legends of Russian figure skating',well now suddenly all of them care about her but not hard to see why. This is why Team Eteri, a Team which single handedly made Russia dominant force in Ladies FS gets so much hate.
I have no idea what will happen at nationals, I won't be surprised to see edge calls, URs and 0 GOEs all across 3A-s protocols and I won't be surprised if I see fair judging either, problem with trying to get Eteri out of the game is that she is simply too big now and doing it Under the radar (these people absolutely love term 'our (put sport here) family', yeah, they seriously think that it is their family, they need to get all that government money and people doesn't have right to know or ask questions . It's their family matter and we 'mere commoners' don't have right to say anything) is hard to impossible.
By her mere existence, Eteri went against that group of people and after that post, cold war which you could feel was going behind the closed doors spilled into open... I have no idea how will all these battles end, I just hope that kids who have been working since 3-4 years old to achieve something in sports wont be caught into crossfire.
