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I don't actually follow ice skating
Feb. 12th, 2022 11:12 amBut an editorial about it still caught my attention yesterday. Apparently, a young skater was
disqualified for using performance-enhancing drugs, and a lot of people on twitter are upset about it for reasons that resonate with me. The skater is very young, and it seems likely her coaches are abusing her. The drug found in her bloodstream was a heart medication she may have been taking because of an eating disorder and not known it was banned in the sport. The testing lab did not follow the usual procedures so maybe the whole thing is some kind of mistake or fraud.
Or there's this columnist, who says she skated so very well she can't possibly have taken any performance-enhancing drugs. WTF? First paragraph, for those who don't want to deal with the WP paywall:
The criminalizing of 15-year-old virtuoso Kamila Valieva is the moral disaster that the pseudo-puritan twistos of the anti-doping movement have been asking for all these years, with their “zero tolerance.” It has led to the damning of an innocent. Watch Valieva, just watch her. Discern anything in her performances but unhurried grace and pure greatness.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/2022/02/11/sally-jenkins-valieva-anti-doping/
I have not paid much attention to ice skating in a very long time. I left the sport more than 40 years ago, when I gave myself concussion in that awkward interval between being able to land a double salchow and being able to land it WELL. I was not brave enough to keep trying. I haven't looked back very often...just noticed how younger and younger girls seem to be winning Olympics with higher and sloppier jumps. I haven't even seen this Kamila Valieva skate.
But I know I've never heard anyone say a runner or cyclist or swimmer obviously can't be taking performance-enhancing drugs, because they're so great and go so fast. Among my people, the discourse around performance enhancing drugs (on the rare occasions it comes up at all) has to do with disability or gender; ie, if they let asthmatics take steroids to bring their bodies to a "healthy" or "proper" baseline, why not also let athletes with ADHD take meds so they can focus, or let trans athletes take hormones--oh. I get it. I don't like what Jenkins is saying, but I suspect her approximate intent is:
"In their overzealous efforts to ban steroids, the IOC is attacking this innocent child who is obviously so delicate and femme she can't possibly be using steroids."
disqualified for using performance-enhancing drugs, and a lot of people on twitter are upset about it for reasons that resonate with me. The skater is very young, and it seems likely her coaches are abusing her. The drug found in her bloodstream was a heart medication she may have been taking because of an eating disorder and not known it was banned in the sport. The testing lab did not follow the usual procedures so maybe the whole thing is some kind of mistake or fraud.
Or there's this columnist, who says she skated so very well she can't possibly have taken any performance-enhancing drugs. WTF? First paragraph, for those who don't want to deal with the WP paywall:
The criminalizing of 15-year-old virtuoso Kamila Valieva is the moral disaster that the pseudo-puritan twistos of the anti-doping movement have been asking for all these years, with their “zero tolerance.” It has led to the damning of an innocent. Watch Valieva, just watch her. Discern anything in her performances but unhurried grace and pure greatness.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/2022/02/11/sally-jenkins-valieva-anti-doping/
I have not paid much attention to ice skating in a very long time. I left the sport more than 40 years ago, when I gave myself concussion in that awkward interval between being able to land a double salchow and being able to land it WELL. I was not brave enough to keep trying. I haven't looked back very often...just noticed how younger and younger girls seem to be winning Olympics with higher and sloppier jumps. I haven't even seen this Kamila Valieva skate.
But I know I've never heard anyone say a runner or cyclist or swimmer obviously can't be taking performance-enhancing drugs, because they're so great and go so fast. Among my people, the discourse around performance enhancing drugs (on the rare occasions it comes up at all) has to do with disability or gender; ie, if they let asthmatics take steroids to bring their bodies to a "healthy" or "proper" baseline, why not also let athletes with ADHD take meds so they can focus, or let trans athletes take hormones--oh. I get it. I don't like what Jenkins is saying, but I suspect her approximate intent is:
"In their overzealous efforts to ban steroids, the IOC is attacking this innocent child who is obviously so delicate and femme she can't possibly be using steroids."
