By Gina Capellazzi, Team FSO website administrator
Photos courtesy Gina Capellazzi and Robin Ritoss
Most people are familiar with the Olympic motto – Citius, Altius, Fortius (Faster, Higher, Stronger). After the Tokyo 2020 Games, “together” was added to that motto. But we don’t always hear about the three values of the Olympics, which are excellence, respect and friendship. The values constitute the foundation on what the Olympic movement builds its activities to promote sport, culture and education.
I thought about these three values a lot during my time in Milan as it was easy to see them playing out in almost every moment inside the Milano Ice Skating Arena. These moments are ones that will stick with me forever.
Excellence
The value of excellence is defined as “striving and encouraging people to be the best they can be.” Of course, everyone wanted to be the best versions of themselves at the Olympics in Milan, and we know that some were disappointed with how they performed in Milan. However, I saw the value of excellence right from the start of Games, especially during the team event. There was never a moment during the three-day team event where fellow athletes, coaches and team leaders couldn’t be seen cheering on skaters and teams participating in the event. The team boxes were usually filled to capacity, with skaters or coaches sitting on the floor. Even if they needed to be conditioning or worrying about their own training or event, they were still there cheering and supporting their teammates. With the exception of World Team Trophy, which is held every other year, and the team event at the Olympics, figure skating isn’t considered a team sport, so seeing skaters come together as a team to encourage each other and rally them through every moment of their skates was showing the Olympic value of excellence. I loved being in attendance for my first team event.
Coaches, of course, strive for their athletes to be the best they can be. I couldn’t help but turn my head over from the field of play to watch the coaches for a few seconds during each performance. Some coaches are reserved, but there are others who outwardly show encouragement of their athletes. I couldn’t miss seeing U.S. pairs coach Drew Meekins jumping up and down during Ellie Kam and Danny O’Shea’s free skate performance in the team event or Japanese coach Mae Hamada having to stretch over the patted boards to reach out and touch Mone Chiba one last time before she started her program. And though he was reserved in the Kiss and Cry, Tadao Kusaka definitely was celebrating during the medal ceremony his student, Shun Sato, winning the bronze medal. I even enjoyed seeing the coaches in the team boxes, some who were even cheering and supporting the athletes more than the athletes were.
Of course, we saw excellence out on the ice, both from those who came home with medalists and those who did not. And there were a number of performances that I will always remember.
Respect
The value of respect is defined in many different ways: respect for yourself, the rules, your opponents, the environment, the public, etc. Oh there was so much admiration toward one another happening inside the Milano Ice Skating Arena. It surely was the highlight of the figure skating events in Milan.
How many viral moments were there of athletes congratulating one another? Two-time world champion Ilia Malinin, after receiving the scores from his devastating Olympic free skate, goes immediately over to congratulate Olympic Champion Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan. It showed a lot of maturity on the part of Malinin to admit defeat and outwardly congratulate one of his competitors. Malinin even told the media that he had watched Shaidorov skate from the locker room and that he was “proud of him.” It was a display of sportsmanship that I hadn’t seen before in figure skating at the Olympic games.
Then there was the moment after Japan’s Ami Nakai’s free skate, where she was confused if she had won or had even medaled following her skate. Instead of celebrating that she had just won the gold medal amongst herself and her coaches, Team USA’s Alysa Liu ran from the leader’s chair over to Nakai in the kiss and cry, and the two hugged and celebrated together. Our photographer Robin Ritoss even captured Liu’s raising Nakai’s arms to show her victorious in taking home the bronze medal.
The leader’s chair, along with the second- and third-place chairs, may have been created for the purpose of establishing rivalries or making the moments awaiting scores more suspenseful, but that definitely wasn’t the narrative in Milan. These were places of respect for each other as well as camaraderie among athletes.
When U.S.’s Amber Glenn sat in the leader’s chair following her free skate, she cheered on her teammates and competitors. There’s photo proof of her standing and cheering on teammate Isabeau Levito during her free skate, as well as hugging Mone Chiba after Chiba replaced her as the leader. When TV cameras came over to capture a disappointed Kaori Sakamoto, she shooed them away to allow Sakamoto to have that moment in private, while also offering her own support to her. This all came from someone who herself was disappointed and frustrated following her own performance just a few days earlier.
This show of respect isn’t just reserved for the Olympics. We have seen it play out in other figure skating competitions recently. Just a month prior, Liu and Isabeau Levito stood and cheered just behind the boards as Glenn went on to win her third-straight U.S. title. I even captured a photo of Maxim Naumov giving Andrew Torgashev a hug following his free skate in St. Louis.
These types of moments is why I love figure skating as much as I do, and it brought me so much joy to see these scenes happening on the biggest stage in Milan. I hope we continue to see these types of scenes play out throughout the season and into the next Olympic quad.
Friendship
I’m going to talk about the value of friendship away from the athletes, and focus a bit on the friendships that helped create such an amazing first Olympic experience for me.
Like the athletes, going to the Olympics as a journalist doesn’t happen overnight. On the surface-level, it’s about a year and a half of planning, but behind-the-scenes, it is every hour spent editing photos, writing recaps, interviewing skaters, recording podcasts, etc., that leads to the goal of getting the opportunity to be an Olympic journalist. And also like the athletes, it takes a village or community to get there.
Many members of my community were with me in Milan and it was a joy to share this experience with them. Some have done this rodeo before and were consistently encouraging me even as I had some doubts along the way. Their encouraging words in the months, weeks and days before were helpful and I felt supported by them every step of the way. I can’t thank them enough.
For some of the others, this was their first time at an Olympics, so being able to share in the “pinch yourself” moments, the pure adrenaline and no sleep, along with the tears, is something I’ll never forget. There were also members of my community who were at home, who also showed that same care and support for me too. Though they weren’t there, I felt them with me while was in Milan and I heard about some of the things they did to help me from afar. Again, I’m truly grateful for my skating community, or whom I better refer to as my skating family. Of course, my own family knows how much time I dedicate to this sport. They have known that it has been my dream to cover figure skating at an Olympic games since I got involved in figure skating media more than a decade ago. Many times I get to share this venture with them, but this time, they watched me fulfill my dreams from a far. I can’t thank them enough for their love, support and consistent encouragement (and I mean there was a lot of encouraging happening in the days before I left for Milan). Also being a faith-filled person, I’m also truly grateful to God for this experience, because without him, none of this would have been possible. I hope to experience it all again in the French Alps in 2030.
The Olympics brings people together every two years, and for us, who solely cover figure skating, it is every four years. So while the Milan Cortina Olympics has come to an end, the Olympic caldron has been extinguished, I feel that the Olympic spirit is still alive. It’s hard to see it when there is so much hatred happening in our world right now, but I still see it in our athletes and all those who were at the Olympics. Just imagine if everyone lived the Olympic values each day, boy, would this world be a different place. But for now, I will carry these themes with me as I continue to cover this sport and I hope our sport continues to demonstrate through the remainder of the figure skating season and beyond.
