Some time ago, one of the major American sports sites published their version of the top 10 in figure skating.
Such votes are always biased and are often distinguished by a pronounced national bias towards “friends”, but the overall picture turned out to be curious, as always happens when the best is determined not by a narrow circle of professionally involved in sports people like the community of sports journalists, but by the general public ...
The best figure skater of all time was named the Norwegian Sonia Heni - the only athlete in the entire more than a century of figure skating history who managed to win the Olympic Games in singles three times and become world champion ten times in a row.
It is unlikely that the respondents were guided in their choice exclusively by sports statistics: in a parallel survey, which concerned sports couples, the three-time Olympic champion and nine-time winner of the world crown (albeit with different partners) Irina Rodnina was only the seventh, and paradoxically, they gave the palm to the duet Alena Savchenko / Robin Szolkovy for ... Savchenko's victory at the Olympic Games in Pyeongchang with Bruno Masso.
I suppose that half of the respondents simply could not remember the name of Alena's last partner.
While the story of incredible athletic courage and overcoming was firmly imprinted in the memory of everyone who had the good fortune to watch the 2018 Olympic final in pair skating.
In the rest of the women's top ten, there was a place for the legendary German woman - two-time Olympic champion Katarina Witt, the heroine of Lillehammer-1994 Ukrainian Oksana Baiul, the first performer of the triple axel Japanese woman Midori Ito and five-time world champion Michelle Kwan, who, along with all her sports trophies, also has an unofficial the title of the main Olympic loser of her country: of the four Games in which the American had the right, and most importantly, she intended to skate, she performed only two times, and both times lost gold, being the clear favorite.
Nagano's Olympic champion Tara Lipinski, who is perhaps the most remembered figure skater when it comes to one-day champions, was even numbered at number seven.
None of the Russian singles were in the top 10, although by the totality of merits, awards and unofficial records, she deserved mention among the best as Evgenia Medvedeva, whose unbeaten run for more than two years will hardly be repeated, and Alina Zagitova, who gathered in figure skating all existing higher titles.
Why did it happen?
Probably because, in the eyes of so many people, star status implies not only highly specialized success, but necessarily some kind of powerful media promotion.
A personal story of overcoming, as was the case with Kwan, a tragic, cinematic fate - like Henie, or at worst a scandal - like Baiul.
Such things catch on, become a kind of triggers, triggers of memory when it comes to this or that character.
There is nothing worse for PR than the absence of such a story, especially now, when the sports age of figure skaters is calculated in a couple of tens of months.
The Channel One Cup, invented and implemented by television, within which the skaters played short programs on Saturday, made me feel very keenly how the pandemic had hit sports hard, which did not allow the stars to establish themselves even more firmly in this capacity, and those who had not yet truly become recognizable, to win at least some significant trophy.
It's a shame to understand, damn it, that the amazingly talented (perhaps the most talented in the world) top three singles in the person of Alexandra Trusova, Anna Shcherbakova and Alena Kostornaya can remain in the history of figure skating as just a trio that was unlucky enough to overcome circumstances.
The team captains and once implacable rivals of Medvedev and Zagitov were at Megasport an additional illustration of how short a sports age can be.
Formally, neither the one nor the other figure skater officially announced her retirement, but this whole season with absolutely outstanding results of Russian singles, as if every minute reminded both of them: sorry, there are no vacant places!
Is that on the podium.
Well, or at the board with a microphone - in the format in which Channel One implemented it.
The appearance of Zhenya and Alina at the Channel One Cup as guest stars-captains is another plus for the organizers of the event.
Both athletes, one way or another, are now going through, perhaps, the most difficult period of their careers - the transition from sports to "another" life.
It is always painful and scary, it always seems wildly unfair and causes a desperate desire to cling to the old life as tightly as possible and not to unclench the fingers.
When an athlete is in this state, he goes through the same stages as any person whose inner world has collapsed due to illness or other reasons: from denial and anger to depression and acceptance of the situation.
And it is very important not to be at this moment without support.
Zagitova in this regard, perhaps, is simpler: no matter how short her career was, Alina managed to win the main thing: she became an Olympic champion, while Medvedeva's whole life after Pyeongchang turned into a race for an escaped dream.
For this, Zhenya left in 2018 for Canada to Brian Orser, and this season she fell victim to the same pandemic.
Her return to her former coach in the fall can be regarded as a brilliant PR move, although in fact it was more likely the result of fear.
Desperate unwillingness to be left alone at the moment when the locomotive of women's figure skating rushes forward at full steam.
Captain Zagitova and Captain Medvedev, surrounded by their teams, became a separate plot of the event.
It didn't take any words to understand how much both of them lack the still not forgotten competitive adrenaline and what pleasure they get, being in their familiar environment.
Therefore, to the question of why figure skating needs such shows at all, which have an incomprehensible status of either a competition or a merry get-together, I will answer: they are needed not only for sports.
But in order to continue promoting their own stars, when their sports result is not too conducive to this, to provide them with the opportunity to skate, and at the same time - the support and sympathy of even people who are very far from sports.
Essentially prolong life.
After all, if you recall the same Carroll Heiss, who took third place in the American top 10 behind Henie and Witt, she became really popular in her own country not when she won the 1960 Olympics in Squaw Valley, but after playing the main role in the film "Snow White and the Three Clowns", directed by the famous American director Walter Lang at the end of his cinematic career.