Holy crap. You know who I feel sorry for in this whole mess? Shcherbakova, who turned in the free skate of the year and won the gold medal completely fair and square, and everyone’s so busy yammering endlessly about tainted and controversy and somber moment and tears and blah blah blah that she bears jumping jack squat fault for to even acknowledge this. I don’t care what network policy is, there should be a rule that no matter what’s going on in the background, when someone reaches the top of the mountain, you talk about that! Has there even been any attempt at analysis of Shcherbakova and Trusova’s routines, particularly how Trusova had more difficult jumps but less elegant artistry overall, and that almost certainly made the difference? All I could find was this context-free video.
Once the games are over, we have all the time in the world to debate what the IOC should do but won’t and all manner of punishments Russia will not be hit with in a million years. For now, hail to the champ. Yeesh.
As for Trusova’s “I’m not going!” and “Everyone has a gold but me!”: WAG, she’s under a ton of pressure to succeed and still has some growing up to do. Once she realizes that Putin’s not going to send her to a firing squad, she’ll calm down, appreciate what she’s accomplished, take a nice long rest, and gradually start down the road to '26.