Ten years ago, Adelina Sotnikova won gold at the Olympic Games in Sochi. The Sport correspondent recalls the figure skater’s journey from a talented junior to the most important victory that passed before his eyes.
Twelve-year-old star
In 2007, when Sochi was announced as the host of the Olympics, Russian figure skaters showed consistently disastrous results. It’s unlikely that many people will remember now, for example, Ksenia Doronina, our only girl at the 2008 World Cup, who took 17th place. At the European championship of the same year, she became only 9th.
The federation leaders saw a solution to the problem in the admission of juniors to adult domestic Russian tournaments. And already in the same year, Adelina Sotnikova, a 12-year-old student of Elena Buyanova (Vodorezova), became the national champion among adults. Second place at the Russian Championship was then taken by her peer Elizaveta Tuktamysheva, a student of Alexei Mishin.
The appearance of such young “supernovae” was a bomb. In Russian figure skating at that time, the prevailing desire was to focus rather on the artistic side — in full accordance with the traditions of the domestic art school. The juniors then simply jumped over their adult competitors — although, of course, it would be categorically unfair to say that they had no artistry. So, Sotnikova, already at a young age, was distinguished by her musicality and choreography. She was even compared to Carolina Costner, an Italian whose combination of technique and gliding skill was considered by many to be a benchmark at that time.
But, of course, Adeline was not seen as “our Costner” in the future — but as the figure skater who will achieve success in the Olympic Sochi. They didn’t even talk about gold back then—the Olympics were too far away. Sotnikova had to approach the 2014 Games at the age of 17 — and this meant that she was inevitably threatened with the most difficult period of growing up for any girl.
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While still a child, she won title after title on the ice, but with each new gold medal, the pressure on Sotnikova grew exponentially — the fact that she would be the one to bet on in Sochi 2014 was heard from everywhere.< br>
But Sotnikova’s stability disappeared with the first signs of growing up — and Adeline stopped winning everything. At the 2012 Winter Youth Olympics, she came second, losing to Tuktamysheva. At the World Junior Championships of the same year — third. Gold then went to Yulia Lipnitskaya, who was rapidly gaining momentum. Sotnikova made her debut at adult international competitions in the pre-Olympic season 2012/2013, but victories did not come to her here either. She skated with changes: bronze at the Skate America tournament was followed by fifth place at the Russian Grand Prix stage, gold at the national championship and silver at the European Championship were followed by only ninth place at the World Championships…
Kachalo Sotnikov and in the first part of the Olympic season. Adelina was unable to combine two clean skates at one tournament. It seemed that things began to improve after the French stage of the Grand Prix, but in the free skate of the Grand Prix Final, Sotnikova fell apart again. There was confusion in her eyes. And there were two months left before the Olympics…
By Sochi, Adelina is not exactly number one on the Russian team. Yes, she won the national championship — but with a margin over Lipnitskaya of less than two points. Many experts were skeptical about the judging of that tournament — and for good reason, since a few weeks later Lipnitskaya was more than five points ahead of Sotnikova at the European Championships. They won gold and silver, respectively, and they got two quotas for the Russian team to participate in the Olympics.
Resentment for the team leader
Perhaps the key event in understanding the secret of Sotnikova’s victory at the Sochi Olympics happened a few days before it began. Namely, in the process of determining the participants in the team tournament of the Games as part of the Russian national team. As you know, according to the rules, substitutions could be made in two out of four disciplines. But in fact — in three, since Evgeni Plushenko, as the holder of the only quota, had to perform two programs without replacements.
The leaders of the federation preferred to act logically. Since there was the greatest amount of time between the team tournament and the individual singles competitions, they decided to make replacements in pairs skating and ice dancing. Thus, after the short program, Tatyana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankova were replaced by Ksenia Stolbova and Fyodor Klimov in the free dance, and the “relay baton” from Ekaterina Bobrova and Dmitry Solovyov, who performed in the short dance, was picked up in the free dance by Elena Ilinykh and Nikita Katsalapov.
As for the participants in women's single skating, here they also acted according to logic — the same one by which they chose Evgeni Plushenko, and not the Russian champion Maxim Kovtun. During the season, Lipnitskaya proved herself to be a more stable figure skater than Sotnikova — she was entrusted with performing both programs in the team tournament. And they completely guessed: all eyewitnesses still remember “Loving Do Not Renounce” in the short composition, and, of course, the amazing “Schindler’s List” in the free song. “The Girl in the Red Coat” is an image that has gone down in the history of figure skating.
But it is not for nothing that this sport is considered to be purely individual in spirit — which is confirmed by the controversy surrounding the question of whether team competitions are even appropriate in figure skating, if many perceive their goal to “medalize” the largest number of athletes. Of course, Sotnikova was upset that she didn’t make it into the team tournament. And that's putting it mildly. “It’s like a knife in the back,” Adeline later admitted, who was expecting to perform in the “team competition.”
You can imagine in what mood Sotnikova arrived in Sochi during the team tournament — according to the regulations, she had to be there in order to have time to replace Lipnitskaya in case of her injury. I was constantly at the training rink and watched Adelina’s only training session on the Sochi ice in those days. The last thing I would have thought was that I had seen an athlete who would take personal gold.
But Sotnikova, having returned to Moscow, seemed to shake off the weight of resentment for not getting into the team tournament — and then went on to the personal start like a tank. Two weeks later, a completely different Adelina appeared in Sochi — not an ounce of doubt, motivated as if for her last fight. Lipnitskaya failed to enter the same river twice — she made a mistake in the individual tournament. And Sotnikova produced two almost perfect programs — something that probably hasn’t happened to her in the same tournament for several years.
“Adelina, you are a champion”
Next — about everything that the whole nation still cannot forgive Sotnikov for. We are, of course, talking about the Koreans — after all, their favorite Kim Young Ah returned to the big sport before Sochi to win her second Olympic gold in a row. It’s interesting that two years earlier, when I interviewed Adeline, who was going to the Youth Games, she jokingly said: “I’ll ask Kim not to leave until Sochi.” But it turned out to be serious.
The Korean woman was also impeccable at the Sochi Olympics. In the short program, she beat Sotnikova by 28 hundredths of a point. She was the last to perform in the free program — at a time when the Russian woman was already in the room under the stands, talking to the press. I still have this picture before my eyes: Sotnikova stands in front of people with voice recorders, trying to answer questions, but she can’t. But Adeline doesn’t want to look at the monitor next to her — she’s overwhelmed with excitement.
But I do it — and I see how after the Korean skater’s performance, her technical score, which initially exceeded Sotnikova’s points, begins to decrease. Only later, according to the protocol, it became clear how this happened — Kim Young Ah lowered the difficulty levels for the step sequence and rotation. But at that second it didn’t matter — the preliminary assessment of the Vancouver Olympic champion was five points lower than Sotnikova’s. And this meant that the Russian woman had the gold.
«Adeline, you are a champion,» — at that moment I was the first to say these words to her. Sotnikova’s lips trembled, tears flowed from her eyes. “No, I don’t believe it,” she answered in a weak voice, but at that moment the Korean woman’s official scores appeared on the screen. And Sotnikova, with a crazy cry of happiness, rushed down the corridor into the arms of Buyanova, who was standing nearby.
Not a single Olympics is complete without such drama. Evgeni Plushenko probably still hasn’t come to terms with the fact that he was beaten by Evan Lysacek in 2010 in Vancouver. It’s hard to say whether Evgenia Medvedeva let go of her loss to Alina Zagitova in Pyeongchang 2018 — sometimes it seems not. And such examples can be listed and listed.
But in the history of Russian figure skating, Adeline is forever. The first Russian Olympic champion among women. And one of those thanks to whom we now have one star brighter than the other in this discipline. Sotnikova is among those who help these stars shine: she began her coaching career. It is believed that great athletes in this field rarely achieve success. Knowing Sotnikova’s character, few doubt that she is capable of refuting this thesis.