Russia ban to kick off a storm in IOC meetings
CURRENT CHAMPION ZAGITOVA THRILLED TO BE SKATING AGAINST HER IDOL Governing body accused of ‘failing’ to protect clean athletes
hen Carolina Kostner competed in her first European championships in 2003, the current champion Alina Zagitova was only eight months old.
Competing in her fourth Olympics this month, Kostner has demonstrated incredible resilience in a sport where fleeting brilliance is more common than decades of endurance.
The graceful Italian, who will turn 31 on the eve of the opening ceremony in Pyeongchang this week, has returned from a suspension and emerged as a contender among a host of teenaged rivals.
In 2015, the five-time European champion was handed a 16-month ban for allegedly assisting her former boyfriend, Olympic race walker Alex Schwazer, with covering up his illegal doping.
Today Kostner refers to the suspension, the challenges of her comeback and the lows in her careers in euphemisms -“obstacles” and “falls”.
She is now focused on her return, not her absence.
“It’s not so much about what obstacles you encounter or if you fall down,” Kostner said after her short programme at the European champions in Moscow last month, where she won bronze, her 11th medal at the Europeans.
“It’s about how you get back up and how you keep on fighting.” Six weeks after returning to competition in December 2016, she finished sixth at the world championships. A few months later, she was back on the podium, winning bronze at the 2017 European championships.
“I believe that I still have a lot of space for improvement and space to actually improve,” she said.
Kostner, a six-time world championship podium finisher and bronze medallist at the 2014 Sochi Games, feared her extended absence and the demands on her body to return to competition could spell the end of her career.
‘Body still improving’
“My body is still improving,” Kostner said in an interview a day after finishing third at the European championships. “And for me it’s a huge points of success. I wouldn’t have thought. It’s been a surprise after a surprise.”
Kostner said she can no longer train like she did when she was 16, adapting her physical and mental preparation over the years. “You have to find the right way to challenge your body and challenge your mind at the different stages of life,” she said.
Kostner says she had matured greatly since Sochi, deepening her understanding of movement and musicality.
She said her podium chances in Pyeongchang will depend on her ability to believe in herself and align all the elements needed for a strong performance.
With the Winter Olympics set to open in only three days, IOC President Thomas Bach faced a barrage of criticism — and entrenched support — from roughly 100 International Olympic Committee members yesterday over the decision to exclude many Russian athletes from the Pyeongchang Games.
Two members — Richard Pound and Gerardo Werthein — got into a nasty exchange on the floor of the spacious meeting room, rare in the genteel traditions of the Olympic body.
Pound is the IOC’s longest-serving member, and he was among more than a dozen to air views in what he called “the matter of Russian doping activities.”
“I believe that in the collective mind of a significant portion of the world, and among the athletes of the world, the IOC has not only failed to protect athletes, but has made it possible for cheating athletes to prevail against the clean athletes,” Pound said, calling the IOC’s world a “comfortable cocoon.”
Werthein jumped in, siding with Bach and going directly after Pound with the other 100 members listening. “For some reason if Mr. Pound doesn’t agree, then it’s wrong,” Werthein said. “We have to understand that this is not Mr. Pound’s organisation. But this is the IOC.”
As Pound and Werthein clashed, 32 Russian athletes on Tuesday filed yet more appeals with the Court of Arbitration for Sport seeking spots in the Games. The 32 failed to pass IOC vetting and were not invited.