We don’t need a quad revolution; we need a safer world for teen girls.
When 15-year-old Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva became the first woman to land a quad at the Olympics last week, it seemed like a victory for women.
But Valieva is not a woman, she is a girl.
Photo by Kelli McClintock on Unsplash
Any semblance of a victory for women evaporated when a positive doping test for Valieva came to light after she had competed and before her medal was awarded.* Who gave this child drugs?
The decision to allow Valieva to continue to skate in additional events despite the positive test because of her status as a minor raised questions about the fairness of the sport, not only for athletes of different ages, but of different races and ethnicities.
Gushing commentary about the “women’s quad revolution” was replaced by investigative journalism pointing out that only teen girls, not adult women, appear to be able to produce quads, which is creating incentives for adult coaches to unnaturally delay womanhood for their young charges through hormone therapies and anorexia, and/or to treat teen athletes as expendable products to be used up through abuse and injury and then replaced with younger models.
While most of this drama has focused on the Russian team, Americans like me must acknowledge that our own recent abuse scandals in Olympic gymnastics demonstrate the same issue. How did a sexual predator maintain a position of power over elite American teen athletes for so long? In part, because the athletes were so young and susceptible. They were also so talented and successful that Americans were unwilling to question the system that was exploiting them. We are complicit.
Girls’ bodies can do amazing things, but inside those bodies are children: children with a right to a safe childhood and to live out their potential to become healthy, adult women.
Citing women’s rights concerns, the Dutch Skating Federation proposed raising the age limit for women’s Olympic figure skating to 17 years old in 2018, and the issue gained momentum in 2020, due to the death by suicide of Australian skater Katia Alexandrovskaya. The proposal did not have enough support at the time, but the current fiasco is bringing the proposal to the forefront again. The Netherlands has also considered raising the minimum age for elite gymnastics to 18 in their own country, an effort that may be worth consideration at the Olympics as well.
Raising the age limit would come at a price. We might see fewer of the amazing Olympic feats that girls tend to achieve more readily than adult women. But what a girl’s body can do is less important than the girl who inhabits that body. Could we fans sacrifice the pleasure of watching a girl perform a quad because we value women more than the tricks their bodies can perform?
Olympians never cease to amaze, breaking the records of the athletes who proceeded them. I wouldn’t be surprised if someday, adult women figure skaters achieve quads. But in the meantime, we don’t need a quad revolution. We need a world with fewer incentives to abuse girls and greater respect for the women girls will eventually become.
*Not following the Olympics? Here’s a quick catch-up, mostly courtesy of the feminist facebook page, Women Hold Up Half the Sky.
February 7, 2022: “On Monday, the teenage elite athlete Kamila Valieva landed one of the hardest jumps in figure skating — a jump that is so difficult, no other woman had ever landed it at an Olympics before — then she did it a second time.”
February 14, 2022: “Sha’Carri Richardson — who was left off a U.S. Olympic team after a positive marijuana test — asked why Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva can compete after testing positive for a banned substance. ‘The only difference I see is I’m a black young lady.'”
Washington Post, February 14, 2022: “Tutberidze has a reputation for running an unforgiving and risky program that critics say drives to stardom and then discards teenage skaters, who have left the sport with severe injuries and reported lasting eating disorders.”
February 16, 2022: “The doping case involving Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva has led to many more questions than answers. Some skaters think it’s time to ask another: Should a 15-year-old be in the Olympics at all?”
February 17, 2022: “Abuse”
PBS New Hour, February 18, 2022: “Raising the age limit, particularly to 18, would virtually eliminate the quad from senior-level competition. And without them in competition, coaches such as Tutberidze would no longer have incentive to push the young and developing bodies of their students to the point of physical breakdowns to learn them.”
I hadn’t been following the Olympics almost at all, and I’d missed all of these stories. It sounds terrible! Simone Biles stepped back last summer over mental health, and the pressure on these girls is ridiculous. Maybe raising the age is the best idea.
I agree with the post. I was also impressed that an Italian woman in the pairs skating where the women usually wear little skirts, and spread their legs to show their crotch, choose to wear an outfit very similar to her male partner.
I agree that the gender-specific costuming has roots in misogyny. I’m uncomfortable with the way you phrased the issue as it also sexualizes girls who compete in all iterations of ice skating. I would have felt better if you had pointed to the freedom of choice girls are beginning to have in choosing their own outfits.
Also, an interesting bit of history. Surya Bonaly of France landed a quad in the 1992 Olympics. Because the judges determined that she over rotated, they didn’t count it for scoring. She’s also the skater who landed a backflip, and remains imo one of the most incredible athletes in ice skating.
I do think raising the age is a good idea. I think elite competition should be for adults who can really understand the full situation and make informed choices. I was upset about Kamila in part because I thought she probably wasn’t even aware she WAS doped. The best way to keep a kid from saying something she shouldn’t is just not inform her in the first place. She’s been training and excelling and pushing herself and now her reputation is permanently tainted because of something she didn’t choose — even if she DID know she isn’t an adult and did not make that choice independently. The things these young athletes have to do in certain sports (gymnastics, figure skating) is wrong — living in training camps/facilities, separation from parental oversight and support, often abusive tactics of coaches, vulnerability to abuse. I think age limits probably should vary sport by sport to take into account the level to which the sport is or isn’t exploitative and damaging to childhood. To a degree that level of training always would shape and take away from childhood. But someone who lives at home with their parents but is able to train to ski etc. — well I’m no so bothered by a 17 year old standout. Especially because often those athletes continue to compete into their thirties. But if the sport makes it only feasible to compete in the Olympics once, when you’re in your early teens — that to me seems problematic. Ice dancing and pairs seem to feature older more mature pairings, and it is still amazing and beautiful to see.
I agree that raising the age is a good idea to protect young athletes from predatory adults. I hadn’t considered that she likely did not know she was doped. It makes sense though because as an athlete she probable follows a strict eating plan, supplements, etc. and takes whatever she is told to take trusting that the adults advising her will take care of her except they didn’t. It’s awful to be violated like that.
An important topic—thank you for discussing it. There’s been quite a bit of conversation on this at my house since this summer.
Thanks for this, April! It does seem that taking teenage girls away from their families, putting them in super high stress training environments, and making them dependent on coaches and support staff is basically a perfect system for abuse to flourish.
This is an important discussion. I’ve never really gotten into the Olympics because I’m not an athlete and don’t enjoy watching athletic competitions. After watching “Athlete A” and seeing how USA Gymnastics let little girls be sexually abused by Larry Nassar for years (girls numbering in the 100s), I can’t trust any Olympic team to put the best interests of their athletes over the desire for Gold medals. I like the idea of having age requirements for competition.
This is excellent. We actually have a member of the US Olympic figure skating team that is an example. The wonderful Alysa Liu, as a 13 and 14 year old took the US national championship in dazzling fashion. But then something happened – her body matured. At 16 she is an amazing skater who finished 7th in the 2022 Olympics, but she did not win the last two national championships. The maturity that would aid athletes in other sports became a detriment to her. Fortunately, the “unnaturally delay womanhood for their young charges through hormone therapies and anorexia”, was not the fate for Alysa. I hope she is able to compete for as long as she wants to and makes a ton of money – like Tara Lupinski – when she retires.