“Interestant” predicted that Evgenia Medvedeva would not make it to the Grand Prix final long before it happened. Saturday's performance at the French stage in Grenoble was the moment of truth for her. Now it’s clear: the figure skater Medvedeva is no more, her successful career is over. Instead of a sorceress on skates, whose skating a year ago took our breath away, we saw a tired prima, offended by the whole world. She skated with errors, fell again, and ended up outside the list of participants in the Grand Prix final. Medvedeva was ahead of not only the absolute favorite of the competition, the smart and hard worker Alina Zagitova (which was completely predictable), but also Elizaveta Tuktamysheva, who had returned from oblivion, and the rising superstar Sofia Samodurova. It will be very difficult for Zhenya to recover from such a blow to her pride.
Pride and Prejudice
After the Olympics, Medvedeva, unfortunately, made a lot of mistakes. And she did this, it seems to us, because of inflated self-esteem.
She did not admit defeat from Alina Zagitova in Pyeongchang (although everything was objective), but began to look for a conspiracy against her beloved within the Eteri Tutberidze group. She refused to believe that anyone could be stronger. And she wanted to prove that without Tutberidze she was capable of beating the “favorites” of her former coach.
But anger, if it is not sportive, but ordinary, is a very bad helper. Moving to Toronto to live with Brian Orser, trying to become a Canadian (as long as we are not talking about a change of citizenship, but a radical change in skating style) figure skater - all this was probably done on emotions. My own, my mother's...
Perhaps Medvedeva realized quite quickly, back in the summer, that everything was not going according to plan. But she could no longer return home, to Russia, not necessarily even to Tutberidze. Indeed, in this case one would also have to admit one’s mistakes. Zhenya was pushed to Canada by her excessive pride, but she did not allow her to return back. Bridges were burned.
The wife needs to forget about hatred
What do we see now, five months later? There is no former lightness and airiness, there are no clean jumps without blurry landings, the signature artistry has also disappeared somewhere. In fact, the skating of the two-time world champion is completely destroyed. She made a mistake in the short and performed even worse in the free.
It is obvious that Medvedeva is also in bad shape physically - at the end of the free skate at the French Grand Prix she looked not just tired, but exhausted. But the most surprising thing is that Zhenya came out to the skating rinks with a dissatisfied expression on her face.
Apparently, this was supposed to indicate her determination and extreme attitude, but in fact it shows the vulnerability of Medvedeva’s current state. Figure skating turned for her into a weapon of revenge. The athlete simply cannot cope with the negative emotions that overwhelm her.
“I need to learn to live with the pressure that is being put on me now. I didn’t expect so much negativity and, most interestingly, so much hatred. I need to learn to live with this,” said Evgenia. Alas, this means that she still has not made the right conclusions, is looking for the reasons for failures in others, and not in herself, and is in captivity of illusions.
In addition, Medvedeva herself created a conflict situation, left Russia with a scandal, praises life in a foreign land, communicates at a minimum in Russian, so where will the avalanche of compliments come from? Of course, she is criticized, sometimes they do it not entirely constructively, even insultingly, but great champions must withstand much more pressure. And certainly do not refer to it as the reason for failure.
Setting star, rising stars
“Yes, I really wanted to skate well. Yes, I let go of my brain, I didn’t think at all. Yes, I gave up on the program. I admit my mistakes, I am not the kind of person who makes excuses. I admit my weakness - it’s in my head,” Medvedeva commented on her Saturday skate.
But the trouble is that “problems in the head” are only a consequence, not a cause. Zhenya is fantastically talented, but talent alone is not enough. It’s trite, but you have to love not yourself in figure skating, but the figure skating in yourself. You need to get high from your images, from your programs, and not get angry at the whole world. Otherwise, what's the point of continuing to compete?
Medvedev's next major start will be at the end of December at the Russian Championship. There she will receive one more, final blow to her pride. After all, only three Russians will win tickets to the World and European Championships. This trio has essentially already been formed: Zagitova, Tuktamysheva, Samodurova. There is no place for Medvedeva there. It is impossible to change anything in a month.
By the way, the three above-mentioned Russian women, who qualified in the company of three Japanese women for the Grand Prix final, which will be held in early December in Vancouver, will certainly compete fiercely with each other. Technically, Alina Zagitova is now the best, but the favorite can be pushed both by Elizaveta Tuktamysheva with her luxurious triple axel, and by Sofia Samodurova - a talented 16-year-old girl who skates with such positivity, with such energy and so cleanly that any stadium from the first seconds - in her power.
Well, the most interesting thing is that the Grand Prix final will become an involuntary competition between two Russian coaches - Eteri Tutberidze and Alexei Mishin. Tuktamysheva and Samodurova are his pupils. This is where the real passion will be!
Dmitry GROMOV,
Internet magazine "Interestant"
Zhenya Medvedeva is a talented athlete, but, apparently, she does not have the psychological tolerance for the stress that is always present in elite sports. In addition to skills and physical capabilities, psychology is very important. The upper limit of the Olympic victory corridor is the athlete’s ability to believe that he will always win. The lower limit is when an athlete encounters failure, but he has high tolerance and continues to move forward without losing this resource.
It's complicated. The winners of the first magnitude are precisely those people who have both of these indicators high. Medvedev, due to her history with the coach and recent failures, became a hostage to the situation. The girl is sensitive, it is important to her what people think about her. Lipnitskaya had the same story when she suffered from anorexia. They are still very young and have lived their whole lives with only victories and nothing else. When an athlete fails at something, he has a crisis that not everyone can cope with, especially at this age.
Bullying Medvedeva is a herd instinct. If she had won, everyone would have said what a bad coach he was for letting her go. In this case, the trainer would be bullied, but if she herself couldn’t show results, they would bully her. Now she needs to take a philosophical approach to the situation and rest a little, and then move forward with renewed vigor. And her parents and loved ones need to support her, and not put pressure on her, so that she gives more and more. Sometimes this can be harmful.
What happened in the free program... This is purely a mental problem. I admit my mistakes, I am not the kind of person who makes excuses. I admit my weakness - it's in my head
Evgenia Medvedeva
Photo: ©RIA Novosti/Vladimir Fedorenko
If Medvedeva follows the “blame everyone” model, and now it looks like that, she will withdraw into the external locus of control “everyone is bad, but I am good” and feel like a victim of circumstances. In this case, the athlete is no longer an athlete. It must be the source of action. If he feels like a victim, he ceases to feel his strength and integrity.
Now she needs to accept her achievements, because they are considerable. It’s clear that when she goes into battle, she only needs to feel like she’s first, but if suddenly victory doesn’t happen, she needs to be able to be glad that you’re second. If an athlete devalues his achievements, then he develops a scenario that he is a victim, and this destroys him from the inside.
In one of her interviews, she still admitted her mistakes, and this is a positive sign. She needs to be protected from traumatic information that bothers her, and then big victories can still return.
Life gives us one after another examples of how everyone's favorite falls into disgrace after a less successful performance.
In this sense, Zhenya Medvedeva is no exception to the rule. What happened to her is what happens to everyone who climbs to the top and stands out from the crowd: first close attention, the expectation of endless victories and the disappointment of the crowd after the first failure.
What should an athlete do in this case? How to deal with this situation? First of all, understand that everything that happens is a natural process, a manifestation of one of the laws of crowd functioning. The disappointment of the public is not the athlete's problem, but the law of distribution of the crowd's attention.
I still need to learn to live with the pressure that is now being put on me. Although I was ready for discussions and condemnations, I did not expect so much hatred
Evgenia Medvedeva
An athlete should not fight the crowd, not try to prove something to them, but focus on their own achievements and measure the degree of their success not by newspaper and Internet responses from people who are not experts in what they are trying to judge, but focus on those standing in front of them. athlete tasks.
In the case of Medvedeva, this is the task of adapting to a new country, a new climate, a new team, and getting used to a new coach. When this task is solved, you need to start setting yourself new performance goals, gradually raising the bar. The very first performance after changing country and coach can be considered successful if the athlete performed even slightly below his results, which he showed while training in the same familiar conditions.
Any problem must be solved step by step, dividing it into a number of subtasks. And remember that the word “decide” implies minimizing the involvement of the emotional sphere and maximizing the involvement of the head - analysis and adjustment of actions.
And if the emotional problem is too deep and the athlete cannot cope with it on his own, he must turn to a knowledgeable psychologist who will help him cope with his emotions and teach him how to manage his emotional sphere.
What does this mean and what should Medvedeva do?
According to psychologists, now the main theses of Medvedeva’s situation are as follows:
- Failure is a natural occurrence for every athlete.
- Bullying is a herd instinct.
To calmly survive the situation and become stronger, Medvedeva needs:
- Don't turn yourself into a victim;
- Adapt to a new environment;
- Hide from angry comments;
- Do not devalue your achievements;
- Continue to work on yourself.
In general, the skater has already taken this path. She stopped using social networks, realized her own mistakes and began to spend more time with loved ones who support her. The athlete herself spoke about this in an interview. Considering that Medvedeva still demonstrates a high level of skill, she needs to get rid of the psychological burden in order to successfully perform complex elements not only in training. And then the world will see champion Evgenia Medvedeva in action again. Perhaps already at the Russian Championship, which will take place in Saransk from December 19 to 23.
The coach noted that she did not like this whole story. According to Tchaikovskaya, it was a wonderful alliance and now it will be difficult for Zhenya to get accustomed to another team.
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Tchaikovskaya believes that every transition of such an outstanding athlete as Medvedev from one coach to another is bad. According to her, there always comes a moment when a professional begins to “go down the mountain.” “Here you change coaches because you don’t see the mistakes in yourself, because you think that you are a genius. And you don’t want to turn around and see how to live on,” the Komsomolskaya Pravda website quotes Tchaikovskaya.
In addition, according to Elena Tchaikovskaya, Medvedeva broke up with Tutberidze in an ugly way. “In any case, the girl should have brought one rose, said thank you and then left, it seems to me,” she said. The honored coach is sure that now is not the time to “arrange who is first and who is second.” In any case, she is not going to get involved in the complicated relationship between Medvedeva and Tutberidze.
Regarding the new skate, Medvedeva’s coach said that the skater did not bring anything outstanding either in terms of programs or elements. At the same time, Tchaikovskaya does not see anything unusual or reprehensible in the fact that Evgenia was included in the main Russian team, since she is a strong athlete. In addition, the Russian woman took the position of leader after the short program at Autumn Classic International 2018. At the first international tournament after moving to Canada, Zhenya scored 70.89 points for the short program.
Let us remember that she performed the triple flip-triple toe loop cascade cleanly, but slightly under-rotated the triple lutz. In addition, fans were delighted with one look of the skater. For her performance, Medvedeva chose a sexy outfit - a short dress with fringe.