"Hospitalized for two weeks": Tuktamysheva will miss the championship of Russia in figure skating because of pneumonia

The championship of Russia in figure skating, which will be held from 19 to 23 December in Saransk, has lost one of the most titled participants. Elizaveta Tuktamysheva will be forced to miss the competition due to pneumonia.

For the first time an athlete reported health problems on the afternoon of December 12 herself. She posted a photo with a thermometer in Instagram that froze at +38.5 degrees and commented on it.

“The ear thermometer shows two or three tenths more, but it doesn’t save much ... Preparation for the Russian Championship is in full swing. Klass ", - wrote Tuktamysheva.

Later it became known that the athlete made a serious diagnosis. Her trainer, Alexei Mishin, said that the girl had pneumonia, and named the time she needed for recovery.

“She was hospitalized with pneumonia for two weeks,” Mishina TASS quotes.

Thus, Tuktamyshev will not have time to recover before the Russian championship and will be forced to miss the tournament.

In the course of recent competitions at the Grand Prix finals in Vancouver, the 21-year-old figure skater drew attention to the fact that the Russian Championship is a special tournament for her. The three best athletes, minus those who do not pass by age, will be able to get into the national team and take part in the European Championships in Minsk and the World Championships in Saitama. Tuktamysheva failed to enter the national team from the 2014/15 season, when she won both main tournaments of the season.

The skater for three years could not return to her former level and missed the Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, but her career was restarted this season. She won the pre-season tournaments in Italy and Finland, excelled at the Canadian Grand Prix stage, and took third place in Japan, breaking her personal record for the sum of two ratings. Due to this success, Tuktamysheva was selected to the Grand Prix finals, where she won bronze, losing only to Japanese Rika Kihira and compatriot Alina Zagitova.

This season, Tuktamysheva confidently holds in the top three of the best Russian athletes in terms of the points scored at a single competition. She is inferior in this indicator to the same Zagitova and at the same time is ahead of Evgeny Medvedev, Sofia Samodurov and Stanislav Konstantinov - all those who also took medals at the Grand Prix stages. True, Alexander Trusov also performed better than Tuktamysheva, and Alena Kostornaya scored practically the same points, but both of them cannot, due to their age, get into the adult Russian team.

A year ago, Yevgeny Medvedev found herself in a similar situation. She was forced to miss the Russian championship due to a leg injury, but the Russian national team’s coaching staff took into account its past achievements and form before a stress fracture of the foot. She spoke at the European Championships and the Olympics, where she took second place. Tuktamysheva can also count on an exception to the rule, I'm sure Olympic medalist Ilya Averbukh.

“This is not an easy situation. Lisa showed herself brilliantly at two stages of the Grand Prix and performed well in the final. But the championship of Russia is decisive in the formation of the national team for the World and European Championships. The coaching council can make a decision and give one of the quotas to an athlete who has not acted for a good reason. There will be a difficult decision. I think Liza deserved the right to continue the season and perform at both major starts in Belarus and Japan, ”said Averbukh RT.

At the same time, the former skater noted that the absence of Tuktamysheva would not affect the entertainment of the tournament, in which intrigue would still be enough.

“The Russian Championship, in the first place, will attract attention with the opposition of Alina Zagitova and Evgenia Medvedeva, as well as with the participation of young girls who won medals in the final of the junior Grand Prix. There will be a big meat grinder, the women's tournament will be the most attractive, they are waiting for the most. The absence of Tuktamysheva will not affect the entertainment, the tournament will still be mega-representative. No country can boast of such a set of athletes, ”the expert said.

Recently, the injury worried about the Olympic champion Zagitova. Shortly before performing in the free program in the Grand Prix finals, she sprained her leg, clinging to the cable during a run. The skater still went out on the ice and skated with a slightly swollen foot.

The absence of Tuktamysheva at the Russian Championship makes the fight for vouchers much more difficult for those athletes who didn’t have time to show themselves properly this season. After all, if the world champion in 2015 takes place in the national team, and also almost certainly will achieve this Zagitova, then there will be only one quota in the national team. Medvedeva, Samodurovoy and other figure skaters will have to desperately compete for it. If Tuktamysheva took part in the championship of Russia, then she herself would have to give everything 100% for the sake of success.

The Zenit football club, for which Tuktamyshev is sick, wished the athlete a speedy recovery in social networks. At the same time, many users felt that the figure skater became ill because of her frank demonstration, during which she was taking off some of her outerwear.

Get well, @TuktikLiza! 💙 ✊ pic.twitter.com/H3OUhR74xy