Lisa Tuktamysheva broke up with her boyfriend and is not going to finish figure skating. If you put together all the February news of the figure in one bunch, this will turn out to be the main one, regardless of whether it will be presented in a secular or sports chronicle - a fresh interview from a St. Petersburg loner, instantly pulled into quotes, was confirmation of this.
You can relate to the skater in any way, admire her jumps or to smash the performances, but one cannot but admit: Tuktamysheva is a phenomenon. Such a bright, bold, sharp-tongued and self-sufficient athlete in Russian figure skating has not been around for a long time. The crown of the world champion, won by her back in 2015 by today's standards, of course, adorns Elizabeth, but she is only an addition. Why exactly? Let's try to figure it out.
When Tuktamysheva just appeared on adult ice, they immediately started talking about her as a terrific talent, discovered in time in the wilds of the city of Glazov by the most experienced and titled solo skating master Alexei Mishin. Although the trainer himself, recalling those times, said something completely different.
“Why, in fact, did I take Tuktamyshev to the group at one time? Tired of working with older girls and realizing that all work goes into the sand. Well, yes, Lisa was ugly in technology, but at least she jumped high. But when we started to work, I suddenly realized that this girl grabs everything that you say to her, just on the fly. That she is plastic, musical, with absolute pitch, with a good head. Although at first, in addition to jumping and clumsiness, I did not see anything at all in Tuktamysheva, ”Mishin noted.
Sometimes fate seems to joke, bringing together an outstanding mentor and an outstanding performer in one temporary space. In the person of Lisa, the specialist, of course, received a gift: a girl who does not even think to question the coach’s words. But Mishin himself became exactly the same present for Tuktamysheva: not every mentor can withstand such radical differences in results that happened over the years of joint work, not everyone wants to continue this incomprehensibly where leading ascent.
This is especially true in modern times, when the figure skater’s century is measured in a couple of seasons or, in the apt expression of the legendary Tatyana Tarasova, in three programs. The adult career of Tuktamysheva (and this is another paradox) went back to the second ten years.
It was often very difficult to get rid of the idea that some kind of evil rock was chasing the skater: In 2012, very little Liza became the winner of the Youth Olympic Games, in 2013 won the national championship, and a year later did not get to the Olympic Games in Sochi - remained in the tenth selection. She became the world champion in 2015, and over the next three seasons invariably drove past all the major starts. Including past the second Olympics - in Pyeongchang.
Mishin treated all these differences philosophically. In an interview, he even recalled that he was glad that Evgeni Plushenko did not attend the Nagano Olympics, although he was then forcibly asked to take the ward instead of Alexei Yagudin.
“I am pleased that Zhenya became the second in Salt Lake City. Of course, at the Games in the USA, I was very upset. But now he is inclined to believe that defeat has become a blessing for us. Otherwise, Plushenko would never have received such a strong incentive to continue to develop further in figure skating. In fact, Lisa and I did not get to the Olympics in Sochi, there are also certain advantages. Including for me as a coach. I now have a guaranteed Olympic cycle of interesting work with a good athlete, able to solve any problems. And she has excellent motivation, ”he said.
Those coaching words were spoken against the background of continuous conversations in figure skating circles that Tuktamysheva was already "waste material." That the coach needs to be crazy to continue to hope for something, working with such a problematic athlete.
After all, that Olympic season 2014 began with the fact that Lisa severely tore the ligaments of her left leg. She was treated for a long time, and when she went out on the ice, it turned out that she could not ride. Then back pain began, and such that Lisa could no longer even walk, not that jumping.
Not knowing all this backstory at once, I probably won’t understand that Tuktamysheva’s career is not about victory, as such, but about continuous overcoming. Even in 2015, which was victorious for itself, the greatest merit of the skater was not that she managed to go through a dozen tournaments of the whole season with a victorious crushing march, and not in the learned triple axel, which laid the world on its shoulder blades. And the fact that the girl managed to survive a period black enough for any athlete when life comes down to a continuous struggle.
With injuries and illnesses. With collapsed equipment and overweight. With the constant employment of a coach and ridicule of rivals. With labels that are sculpted by everyone who is not lazy, sincerely believing that you will never return to the heights that you once conquered.
“To be a 21-year-old skater in Russia is like a 40-year-old woman in life,” Tuktamysheva’s expression instantly became a meme in the sports environment and a reflection of yet another paradox: in a situation in which it is fit to burst into tears of fire and announce completion career, realizing that it becomes completely unbearable to compete with teenagers, Lisa continued to calmly do her job: change choreography, learn new jumps, including quadruples, and new approaches to them, and at the same time troll the public in social networks in every way without worrying at the same time what they will say about her and how this or that passage will be judged.
Self-sufficiency is always a property of a strong and self-confident person. While the world, hanging on the Internet, chooses expressions, so that God forbid not to violate the mythical boundaries of tolerance, only a few allow themselves to remain themselves, write their own history. And is it any wonder that for a huge number of fans, the story of Lisa, full of ups and downs, looks an order of magnitude more attractive than any champion technical protocol?
It seems that, having become a pioneer in the technical complexity of women's single skating, Tuktamysheva understood a rather simple thing before the others: a sports career is exactly the time when you are a painter to yourself: what color you paint on the canvas will remain in the memory of millions. Yes, and in your own memory too.
By the way, it will be surprising if in the next season Tuktamysheva limits herself to a single quadruple jump in her programs. The wording "Lisa can do anything!" It has already been demonstrated so many times to the world that it makes sense not to doubt, but to look forward to it. Moreover, the skater has already announced: her goal for the coming year is to participate in all major starts.
And could Alexei Nikolayevich Mishin, celebrating his birthday in the first days of March, wish for a better gift?