2022 Olympic champion Anna Shcherbakova is considering returning to competition after missing the previous one, a source said. season. Sports evaluate the chances of a skater for a comeback.
It seems to be both surprising and not very much at the same time. How many of those who would return after a «pause» in our figure skating? The word «pause» is put in quotation marks so as not to support the myth of the imminent second coming, which is about to happen, well, almost already, but already right at least in a season, at least two.
A sacred cult of returns that never happen, but are still believed in. Of those who have returned recently, only Alexandra Stepanova/Ivan Bukin come to mind. For some reason, I believe that Victoria Sinitsina/Nikita Katsalapov are still capable, if health allows. And even then we are now talking about ice dancing, the specifics of which really allow for a more or less painless return to sports. As three-time Olympic champion Irina Rodnina once said, dancing exists separately from the rest of figure skating.And alone — silence. Adelina Sotnikova, Alina Zagitova, Evgenia Medvedeva and a number of other figures with slightly less big names. Literally all the stars of recent years stopped competing, but at the same time «didn't go anywhere.» Moreover, if some of them (Medvedev and, probably, Sotnikova) at least admitted the possibility of returning, but changed their minds, faced with health problems, then others (Zagitova), obviously, did not really want to initially.
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Over time, everyone got used to this, so when Anna Shcherbakova, instead of preparing for the post-Olympic season, went for knee surgery, and after that she spoke too evasively about her plans for her future career (or for life after her career?), No one was particularly surprised. Well, another figure skater «on pause» — what's wrong with that? And then it returns. More precisely, he thinks so far, but nonetheless. It definitely does not fit into modern templates.On the other hand, it fits very well, given the personality of the athlete. Let's honestly admit that over the past 15 years we have not had so many skaters who love their job as much as Shcherbakova. Even Eteri Tutberidze, when asked to explain Anna's phenomenal victory at the Russian Championships in 2020 after suffering from pneumonia and covid just recently, said that she «just loves figure skating very much.» Unlike many, sport for her was neither a social lift nor the only way for self-realization. Anna has a wonderful family and outstanding intellectual abilities. They say about such people that «all the doors are open» for them, but of all the possible ones, she chose one — the most difficult.
The paradoxical path of Shcherbakova's victories surprises only those who do not know her at all as a person. She took her own, not being either a favorite, or even a favorite of her coach. As a child, she was kicked out of the group and strongly advised to put her triple jumps «somewhere else», as if labeling her as unpromising, and she returned and was the first in the super-talented team to start the quadruple jump. She returned after a severe leg fracture, lagging behind her rivals, and then won the debut championship of Russia. And then another and another.
She went to the World Championships, barely recovering from pneumonia, and won gold. I came to the Olympics, not even counting on second place, but in the end I won. I remember, after the personal tournament in Beijing, I called her the champion of the Universe in victories in spite of, and so far it seems that no one will take away this title from her in the next thousand years.
And after all this — to return to the sport? Even the mere intention, the very thoughts of returning in the current conditions, when health is no longer the same, all (or almost all) major titles have been won, and there are no international tournaments in the near future, speak louder than any policy statements about her character.
Although, of course, there are also questions. For example, with what technical content could a theoretical comeback take place? During Anna's downtime season, the national women's top was replenished with at least three new adult prims with ultra-si — Sofya Akat'yeva (triple axel + quad toe loop), Adelia Petrosyan (triple axel + quad toe loop, flip and rittberger) and Sofya Muravieva (triple axel). Anna already competed with the last two at the Russian pre-Olympic championship, but then Adelia and Sofya were still formally juniors — now their rivalry will be in the same age category.
All this suggests that Shcherbakova needs a quadruple. To go out only with triples (there is no doubt that Anna is able to restore them in the program for the time remaining before the season) means to abandon plans for gold, and in some cases, as the example of Alexandra Trusova shows last season, and from the fight for medals in general.
It is not easy to assess the likelihood of the return of the quad to the arsenal of the Olympic champion now, but there have already been two moments in her career when even serious health problems and extraordinary external circumstances did not prevent ultra-c jumps — the very pneumonia championship of Russia, in which she mastered for the first time this season two clean quadruples in the free program, as well as the second half of the Olympic season, where there were also the consequences of a summer toe fracture that crumpled all pre-season training, and skates broken right at the Olympics. All this allows us to hope that with proper motivation and a satisfactory condition of the knee, the return of the quadruple will only be a matter of time.
True, before that, Anna risks repeating the path of her friend Alina Zagitova. In the 2019/20 season, she went out to fight against ultra-six girls Trusova, Shcherbakova and Alena Kostornaya, who had just switched to adults — and, having lost almost overnight the status of the leader of the national team and judicial loyalty, she lost to them outright. After that, videos with trainings for a quadruple flip on the “rod” began to surface on the network — well, when it became clear that it was not possible to master the jump in the shortest possible time (which would be almost a miracle), Alina, without waiting for the equator in the form of the Russian championship, announced going on pause.
On the other hand, there is a feeling that Anna is able to take a more rational attitude to the temporary imperfection of the technical arsenal and not lose heart against the background of short-term failures. And it will be much easier to restore the quadruple flip, which the champion has owned for more than one year, than to learn the element from scratch. Therefore, if she suddenly finds enough motivation in herself, and her health does not fail, she will really have good chances for a full-fledged return — by the way, the first in the modern history of our women's single skating after missing the season.
In the end, who, if not she? To be paradoxically the first in something, even in spite of the circumstances, she is definitely not used to it.
The opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.