Over two weeks and three weekends, the Beijing Winter Olympics will fill our hearts and television screens with plenty of excitement. For my household, much of it will take place on the Olympic figure skating ice.
Mixing colorful costumes and loud music with a mixture of elegance and athleticism, there’s bound to be plenty of thrills along with a few spills and disappointments, but enough flash and panache to make it all seem worthwhile.
Thanks to the 13-hour time difference between Beijing and the U.S. east coast, we’ve tuned in to watch figure skating following our nightly dinner – during prime time – and the just-completed team competition kept us up past our bedtime the past few nights. Sometimes, we watched on our living room TV and other times on my iPhone while laying in bed. Learning about the human side of many of the Olympic figure skaters who are competing as well as gaining an appreciation for what drives them to excel on ice has been fascinating.
Sunday night (Monday morning in Beijing), during the final day of the team skating event, we had the pleasure of watching 15-year-old Russian phenom Kamila Valieva become the first woman to land a quadruple jump in Olympics competition. She landed a quadruple Salchow as her opening element during her free skate program performed to Ravel’s “Bolero.”
While making history, the Moscow resident Valieva helped lead the Russian Olympic Committee team to a gold medal in the team competition by finishing first in both the short program and the free skate.
The images of the five-foot-three-inch Valieva lifting her arms above her head as she spun, accented by her blurred red gloves, seemed effortless. Yet, it’s obvious she’s put a lot of time and dedication into perfecting each element – each quadruple jump – of her routine. To her credit, Valieva proved human – and not just a jumping machine – after she fell to the ice when she attempted her third and final quadruple jump. She shook off the mistake, put it behind her, and continued her program. Her score was more than 30 points higher than second-place finisher Kaori Sakamoto of Japan.
It’s nice to learn from newspaper reports that Valieva sometimes giggles during her interviews with Olympic media. The other day, she entered the media area following her short program clutching a stuffed animal. Remember, she’s just 15. However, it’s been her dream to be an Olympic champion since she was about three years-old.
After practicing gymnastics, figure skating and ballet as a child, Valieva liked figure skating the best. She once said that “gliding on the ice and the speed are awesome.”
With Valieva’s goal of becoming an Olympic figure skating champion coming into the spotlight, no doubt she will draw plenty of attention next week when the women’s individual competition takes place. It won’t surprise me if Valieva wins the gold medal and stands on the top step of the medal podium at Capital Indoor Stadium. Winning gold seems to be a Russian tradition among women’s figure skaters – and to her credit, Valieva exudes a winning combo of brains and brawn.
In her own words: “I believe that my next dream will come true, too.”
Screenshot photo courtesy of NBC Olympics video.
To watch highlights of Valieva’s team competition performance: https://youtu.be/hda3vvmqQHQ