After quads on Thursday

Figure skater Adelia Petrosyan took a risk in her free program and was left without a medal, and ski mountaineer Nikita Filippov had enough speed to bring Russia perhaps the only award at these Games

Many people now argue that the modern Olympics have turned into a pitiful spectacle. And in general, sport, according to critics, has become so politicized that only those who “do not understand anything” can watch it and admire it. I’m not going to argue with the “know-it-alls,” but I will say that for me the Games (and not only the Olympic Games) by and large have always been and will be outside of politics. At least until it is not parliamentarians wearing ties who enter the arenas, but people for whom free physical flight is the meaning of their whole lives. And for whom, in a good way, being “faster, higher and stronger” is more important than anything else. Their obsession gives us a whole range of emotions. But it does not leave you indifferent. Unlike empty government (and other) officials, who with their unreasonable actions often put a spoke in the wheels of athletes worse than biased judges and evil rivals...

Listen to what three-time Russian champion Adelia Petrosyan said a year ago:

“...I'm afraid that my form will go away or I simply won't have the opportunity to perform at the highest level. This means that in international history I will be a nobody. It’s like I never existed.”

And here are the words of the national champion in pair skating Alexandra Boykova after the victory of the Japanese Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara in Milan 2026:

“First you spend years of your life to reach your goal. You put in a lot of effort, you make a lot of attempts, you prove to yourself and everyone around you that you are worthy of your goal... In order to eventually watch how others embody it.”

Let me remind you that Russian greenhouse athletes were simply not allowed to participate in the Olympics. I understand that someone will immediately grin and blurt out: “Here’s sports without politics for you!”

But now we are not talking about admission or non-admission, but about sensations... “Unfortunately, you will not experience the adrenaline that you experience at the Games anywhere else” - this is a quote from Daniil Gleikhengauz. And just imagine: if the choreographer and coach standing behind the board says this, then what is going on in the athlete’s soul? (And especially in the soul of a skater who has only a few minutes to show everything he has been preparing for 48 months.)

However, such adrenaline can contribute to both achievement and “bankruptcy”...

In general, at this Olympics, figure skating has already broken all records for sensations. Well, who expected a magical performance from Kazakh Mikhail Shaydorov and an epic puncture from the American Ilya Malinin? And who predicted silver for Anastasia Metelkina and Luka Berulava, who brought the first winter medal for Georgia? Everything was turned upside down in the dancing, where the Frenchman Guillaume Cizeron and the new beauty Laurence Fournier Baudry were ahead of the Americans and Canadians and immediately climbed to the top, which has never happened in this type of program, where there is a so-called queue and seniority. (And now Guillaume is the first and only Olympic comrade to win with two different partners.)

...The singles girls in Milan were left for dessert. Although the hosts of the ice had no chance of winning medals in principle. But these chances remained for as many as seven skaters, including Adelia Petrosyan. The attention of the whole country was riveted to her. And the most diverse. For the sake of hype, journalists even reached Yevgeny Petrosyan, who humorously wished the following: “Regardless of the fact that she is my namesake, may God’s grace allow her to set a record.”

But the mercy of the Almighty was not enough for Adelia. It was necessary, as in the short program, to surprise the audience and the judges again. Experts' opinions differed radically on how this wow effect should have been achieved.

Some believed that without quadruple sheepskin coats (at least one), her path to the podium would be closed. Others insisted that the main thing was not to take risks and to effectively demonstrate all the triple tricks perfected to the smallest detail, and then, you see, the main rivals, who should go on the ice after Petrosyan, fall from fear and excitement... There was a reason in both those arguments. But we also had to focus on the condition of Adelia herself, who had been suffering from a leg injury all season, but from whom medals were expected. After all, since Sochi 2014, Russian young ladies have not given gold to anyone...

So to take the risk or not? With or without ultra-si?

Eteri Tutberidze and her mentee chose the first option, deciding at the last moment to include a quadruple sheepskin coat in the program, considering that without it they would not be able to get on the podium. And they were, in my humble opinion, absolutely right. It’s just that the beautiful Adelia fell from this jump at the very beginning of the performance... She, having collected herself, clearly coped with the other tricks, but that very first “pancake” eliminated her from the fight for medals. After all, in order to remain in second place, where Petrosyan found herself after two numbers, the Japanese and American women next had to “perform Ilya Malinin.” They didn't fulfill it. Yes, Kaori Sakamoto made a mistake, she was left without a cascade, but she was left (absolutely naturally) with silver. Bronze was sensationally snatched by 17-year-old anime princess Ami Nakai, although it was she who was in the lead after the short program. But her time is ahead. Like, I hope, Adelia Petrosyan, whom I really want to praise. Getting into the top 6 under all circumstances (first of all, without having had many years of competitive practice with the best of the best) is worthy. And she did everything right. Taking a risk and losing is better than losing without taking a risk. “In our situation, we needed to skate perfectly with two quads,” Daniil Gleikhengauz explained to reporters the decision to go all-in.

...Gold in women's skating was returned to the United States a quarter of a century later by the fabulous and outrageously courageous Alisa Liu.

And this is also unexpected to some extent. And not because current world champions rarely took the Olympics. But because the artist herself in a sparkling dress, in her own words, “didn’t dream of a medal and rejoiced at the very fact of being at the Games.” However, such a relaxed mood, coupled with off-scale adrenaline, gave her a well-deserved reward. The second, if we add Victoria in the “commander”...

...And how much adrenaline Nikita Filippov added to all those who watched ski mountaineering yesterday afternoon. In this debut event of the Olympic program, you need to do the following one by one: run up the hill on skis with special bindings and pads (“kams”); then, having unfastened the skis and attached them to the backpack, run through the staircase section, and then in the transit zone put on the skis again and make another climb to the top through the labyrinth; and to top it off, take off those same non-slip “kams” from your skis and slide down the mountain, like in a slalom.

Whoever is first is the king of the sprint. Funny? There are a few. Jokers also advise eating a can of stew at one of the sites and setting up a tent... But this winter in Russia we are all a little bit ski mountaineers...

...And the guy from Kamchatka has been doing this since he was 15 years old. Purposeful and successful (he is a 23-time national champion and a bronze medalist at two World Cup stages). Nikita, by the way, was the first Russian to receive neutral status and make it to the Games. “I’m ready to give everything to win. I’ll push myself as far as possible…” the 23-year-old athlete promised. He turned it out. And in the quarterfinals, and in the semifinals, and in the final. And he flew to historical silver, showing the best result in his career at the Stelvio stadium in Bormio. And you should have seen how warmly the stands greeted him, and on the podium he smiled broadly along with the golden Spaniard Oriol and the bronze Frenchman Thibault.

Well, the state channels, which ignored the Milan Games for two weeks and only threw mud at the organizers, looking for various construction and other mistakes, immediately took off their “protective-neutral “kamus” and began vying with each other to report that Nikita Filippov brought the first medal at the Olympics.

Brought for Russia! Minister Mikhail Degtyarev immediately appeared and announced that Nikita was awarded the title of Honored Master of Sports. Here, of course, he must be praised.

After all, in fact, Filippov, whose resting pulse is 30 beats per minute, made even people far from physical education desperately and pleasantly nervous. People are watching the Olympics, no matter what anyone says. And they rooted for the unique “eccentric with a backpack” not only in Kamchatka. And, I’m sure, in those three short and fast races, the charming “all-around tourist” did much more than all the sports ministers in the entire Olympic cycle... Children and adults are already actively discussing the new discipline on social networks and also want to try. This is the real popularization of sports! And not just ski mountaineering. In general! This is why, no matter what, we need to participate in the Games, and not boycott them. Then big sport will be out of politics.

Today. Tomorrow. And always.