Don't you dare talk about betrayal! How to understand the departure of Zabiyako under the flag of Canada

Anastasia PaninaSport correspondentAll materialsRussian figure skater Natalya Zabiyako resumes her sports career and will play for the Canadian national team. Sport recalls the difficult history of the athlete and explains why her decision should be respected. An example of love for figure skating on the verge of madness and willingness to sacrifice everything for the sake of the dream of Olympic gold for many years was Alena Savchenko. She went through five full cycles in sports, coming to the last — gold — Olympics at 34 years old. She changed Ukrainian citizenship of Ukraine to German, changed four partners, several coaches, and generally started the road to the top anew many times. And even after the Pyeongchang 2018 gold medal and the birth of her daughter, she still tried to come back — she tried to skate with a new partner, but to no avail.
Alena SavchenkoIt seems that we have our own candidate to replace Alena Savchenko — Russian figure skater of Estonian origin Natalya Zabiyako. Her new partner, Canadian figure skater Zachary Daleman, is six years younger than Natalya. The new coach is Canadian specialist Bruno Marcotte, who led Megan Duhamel and Eric Redford to World Championship and Olympic medals. New sports citizenship — Canada. Four years after the end of a very difficult career, at the age of 27, Natalya Zabiyako returns to big sport. Natalya was born in Tallinn and for a long time represented Estonia in competitions. At the age of 14, she persuaded her parents to let her train in America. And only in 2014, when she was already 20 years old, she received an invitation from Nina Moser to play for Russia. At first she skated with Yuri Larionov, but he soon ended his career, and then Natalya got paired with Alexander Enbert. They matched everything — anthropometry, cleanliness of lines, amplitude of skating, technical training and level of ambition. The couple turned out to be a feast for the eyes, and although they were always a little in the shadow of other leaders of the team, they found their audience and won medals. Zabiyako and Enbert got into a wave of complications in pair skating — they, for example, learned the throw of a triple axel, which led to a terrible fall, hitting his head on the ice and Natalia's many months of recovery.