12 socket , THEME: Sports and Competition ADVANCED 43 FUNCTION: Discuss the toll of sports on athletes ENGLISH Success of Russia’s Female Figure Skaters Takes a Toll in Injuries and Stress (Jeré Longman, NY Times, Feb 2018) The figure skater Evgenia Medvedeva of Russia and her training partner, Alina Zagitova, 15, are widely expected to win two of the three available medals in women’s singles skating at the Winter Games and are expected to make Russia a gold medal favorite in the team competition. But no longer does Medvedeva appear invincible. And neither does Russian skating. On the ice, Medvedeva was a maturing artist and an innovative technician who performed with ruthless consistency. When she fell on a double Axel jump at the Moscow competition in October, no one was more stunned than Medvedeva herself. She called the spill “a moral weakness.” “I let out my joy too early,” she said. In hindsight, the fall may have resulted more from an injury to her right foot, later determined to be a broken bone, than from premature celebration. Medvedeva is the third high-profile Russian skater to have had her career disrupted lately because of injury or an eating disorder. Her fragile foot has raised continued questions about whether Russia’s reliance on tiny young female skaters — who best succeed with the difficult jumps required in today’s scoring system — has put some elite performers at risk of getting hurt and having their careers derailed while they are still teenagers. Injuries and eating disorders are common in figure skating, affecting skaters from many countries. Gracie Gold of the United States, who finished fourth at the 2014 Olympics in singles skating and won a bronze in the team competition, is out of skating at the moment for what she described as depression, anxiety and an eating disorder. The need to keep weight down to jump proficiently puts a lot of pressure on the sport’s athletes. “I cannot eat what I want after six in the evening like I could before,” Medvedeva said in October. “Things have changed from two or three years ago. That seems especially true under skating’s current scoring system, which attaches a numerical value to every element from jumps to spins to footwork and musical interpretation, and favors extravagant jumping. Russia has rigorously maximized the possibilities of the points system. For instance, a 10 percent bonus is awarded for each jump in the second half of a routine, when skaters’ legs are tired. Zagitova does all of her jumps in the second half of her routine. Medvedeva performs several of her jumps with one arm above her head to increase the difficulty. In Russia’s centralized training system, where a number of top skaters practice together and push each other daily, girls as young as 10, 11 or 12 are performing a number of challenging jumps requiring three revolutions. It is easier to jump before the body matures and fills out after puberty. Alexandra Trusova, who won the junior Grand Prix final in December, can land a quadruple salchow, even if imperfectly, at age 13. Yet, while young bodies are flexible and resilient, they are still growing and can be susceptible to injuries to the joints and soft tissue. But the increasing difficulty of jumps for men and women has put skating in “uncharted territory” regarding health repercussions, said Tom Zakrajsek, a prominent American coach. “In I.S.U. medical commission circles, there’s a lot of concern about that,” he said, adding that’s likely why some want to limit allowed jumps or awarded points. “It probably makes sense. As much as we’re doing this for sport, we also want to keep in mind the health of the athlete.” Key Vocabulary hindsight: _______________________________________________________________ derail: _______________________________________________________________ proficiently: _______________________________________________________________ rigorously: _______________________________________________________________ puberty: _______________________________________________________________ ©2017~2018 English Buffet Discussion and Activities ____________________________________________________ Discussion 1. What do you think is the average career span for different types of athletes? Are young people encouraged to take too many risks? Are older athletes pushed beyond their abilities? 2. According to the article, Medvedeva competed and won the NHK Trophy, but needed painkillers to perform in Moscow in October. She competed with a broken bone in her right foot, saying, “This is the Olympic season.” Should athletes be allowed to use medication like painkillers to allow them to compete? 3. There are many famous examples of prodigious talent allowed to foster and grow (Tiger Woods, as an example), but there are just as many examples of talented athletes whose careers have been cut short. How healthy is it for people to focus on a single goal? How can people cope with the loss of fame? 4. According to the article, “Yulia Lipnitskaya, who won a gold medal in 2014 in the inaugural team skating competition at age 15, retired last August, saying she had struggled with anorexia.” Furthermore, “Tara Lipinski of the United States, who won the 1998 Winter Olympics at age 15, later needed hip surgery after all her obsessive and repetitive jumping.” When should coaches intervene if their athletes show emotional or physical issues? What can athletes do if their coaches push them in seemingly reasonable ways? 5. In high contact sports such as the National Hockey League (NHL) or the National Football League (NFL), there is a high risk of concussions, with an elevated number of players’ brains showing signs of the neurodegenerative disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). What measures should sports leagues take to protect the health of their athletes? 6. Given the structured lives that many students lead in Japan, at what point in a person’s life should they, or do they have to, choose between a passion and a career? (Image of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, Boston University Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy via Wikipedia) ©2017~2018 English Buffet .