Obama: Russia doesn't make anything

[amandabeech]

52. You know, I didn't even watch the vid. My bad. My very bad.

Liptnitskaya also did well in the junior ranks, but this was her first senior season.

Liptnitskaya has papers that say that she is 16, but she looks not more than 11, maybe 12. There are many young female skaters who do really well before the puberty monster hits them. And that's what it is called in skating: the puberty monster. The puberty monster turns skinny children into shapely young women. The physics of jumping and spinning do not allow for shapely young women to do the same things that they could do when they looked like children. Some skaters manage to make the transition--usually they are naturally fairly thin with "conservative" figures. Sotnikova, the gold medalist, at 17, has pretty much made the transition. Yu Na Kim, in her early 20s made it. Both had some really awkward years in between as they adjusted to a new center of gravity and a totally new body. Many do not make that transition. Liptnitskaya will grow in height and she will put on weight, which is healthy. What I don't want to see happening to Lip is what happened to Oksana Baiul in that her coach limited her calorie intake very severely and did not demand that what she ate was healthy so that she grew 3 inches and put on NO WEIGHT until after the next Olympics. When Baiul finally started eating, she had difficult turning the most difficult triples. And of course she fell apart psychologically due to her life story. It was awful to see, and still is. She is currently coaching in the NYC area.

Baiul did have skills on the ice other than jumping however. She was an excellent spinner and her basic skating skills were unmatched. I saw her in pro comps twice and I could just watch her stroke around the rink and do simply moves for hours. She was that good. She could also interpret just about any type of music. Had she not had a psychological meltdown, she would have had a much longer pro career and a better life now.

Lipnitskaya is not known for her musicality nor for her performance abilities. Her coach and choreographer were able to find her suitable music for the Olympic season that masked her weaknesses in these areas. We will see if Lipnitskaya skates as well in coming years as she did in her short program at the Olympics and at the World Championships. It is not a given, and I have seen too many very promising female skaters just disappear from the sport after a triumph in a child's body.

I stand by what I said about the pairs, however, which is a traditional Russian strength.