Why don’t people believe the skater who accused the coach of abuse. Or victimblaming in Russian

First, a little preface. It turns out that neither I, nor my colleague, nor Lisa herself expected our interview to go like this. I won’t even attempt to discuss the fact that we all love hype. For some, it’s just a way to boost self-esteem on social media, but for us journalists, it’s our own bread. Well, literally, I mean. The amount of hype generated as a measure of the quality of your work – yes, in such a world we live and will live. And, probably, they lived before – it’s just that last spring the grass still looks greener than the current one.

But when I was preparing for an interview with Lisa, the bet in terms of potential citation was completely different. I admit that she herself did not expect that we would end up talking about intimidation, insults about the weight and threats from the trainers. About halfway through the conversation, Lisa said that she wanted to write a post on her social media about what happened to her in the current season, but since the subject of the reasons for the failures came up, here it is.

It’s me to the fact that fan comments like “what, was she paid for this interview?”, that I encountered – natural nonsense. Everything happened spontaneously for all parties.

Another important detail, the accusations made by Lisa are too serious to prevent the other party from responding to them in a public space. Of course, we would not suppress the position of Evgeny Vladimirovich Rukavitsyn (head coach Nugumanova, who was accused by her of threats and intimidation) and her choreographer Valentin Molotov (according to the skater, physically threatened) if they decided to speak out.

But on the first day of the conflict, Rukavitsyn refused to comment on the student’s words, and on the second, neither Evgeny Vladimirovich nor Valentin responded to numerous calls from , so we will not hear from the other side in this conflict. Maybe just for now. But it is quite possible that in general.

Now – to the point. I assume that, since you are here, you know the approximate contents of Elizabeth’s interview (if not, it is attached in supplementary material to the text), so there is no need to repeat it. In fact, I would go straight to the consequences in terms of public opinion. In short, all the main media of our figure – Tatyana Tarasova, Maxim Trankov, Ilya Averbukh, Valentin Piseev and others – defended the coach and / or questioned the words of Elizabeth, and skepticism prevails in the fan environment with a weird argument in the style of “I don’t believe her because that’s the way it is.” Because Nugumanova shoots a video on TikTok and looks pretty happy, although according to fan logic, apparently, she should get depressed and not appear in public.

The only thing that made people a little doubt the inviolability of the position of the coach (although there is formally no position, since Evgeny Vladimirovich does not comment on the situation in any way) – the words support for Lisa of St. Petersburg figure skaters, including Andrei Mozalev and Maria Talalaikina, with whom Nugumanova trained together in Rukavitsyn before Masha decided to play for Italy.

In fact, only the athletes themselves expressed their solidarity with their colleague, and this is a rather curious case. By the way, after the release of the material, some skaters, including former ones, called me and told me that cruelty and arbitrariness are our harsh realities. “It’s been worse,” one of them told me, and there wasn’t a hint of joy in his tone.

At the same time, other honored coaches and veterans of the “figurine” stick strictly to, roughly speaking, “their own.” And given the above, they can probably be understood. But why do the supporters blindly take the side of the coach, who definitely has no real information on the affairs within the group?

Difficult question. Probably even something from the realm of human psychology, somewhere along the lines of victim blaming. Although, of course, for the official status of “victim” (meaning the victim), Liza has not yet provided substantial evidence of the incidents described. But, as she told us in today’s commentary, it’s all in the process.

And yet – why? Probably because big sport is synonymous with cruelty. Over the past month, for some reason, this topic has been a common thread running through all of my interviews. First, our famous dancer Ramil Mehdiev said it, and then – the choreographer of the Eteri Tutberidze group Alexei Zheleznyakov. Then I believed it too. Surely you too.

Is it true? Maybe yes. Maybe super-achievements really do need super-motivation, far beyond the concepts of norms and morals. And those who got their super-achievements even through persecution and humiliation will never publicly condemn those through whom they took place in life. Even though they crossed the line. But what about those whose achievements turned out to be quite ordinary, although there was enough “overmotivation”?

Fans demand that they shut up and endure, even if everything is objectively bad. Because if we live in a paradigm of accepting and accepting cruelty in all its forms, then how can those who have been shot and expelled afford to open their mouths? It turns out that they did not deserve the right to the feelings and emotions inherent in everyone.

They are “not worth mentioning”, as former Russian Figure Skating Federation (FFKKR) President Valentin Piseev put it. In general, they should be forgotten and thrown out of the information space, as their experiences and problems in no way fit into the general paradigm of forging gold medals.

We have the feeling that at the moment we are not dealing with a local “skater VS coach” confrontation, but with a global conflict of generations. Coaches, many of whom formed their style based on Soviet methods, are unlikely to be ready to rebuild without shifts in public consciousness, something daredevils like Sofya Shevchenko and Liza Nugumanova are likely to influence.

Maybe if there are more statements from these kinds of athletes, sooner or later we will all come to the conclusion that even cruelty in sport should have limits. And the sports world will get a little cleaner.

And for those who continue baselessly (i.e. without evidence that is not currently available) to accuse Lisa of lying, I propose to simulate an abstract situation. Your daughter is a figure skater and one night tells you that her coach is abusing her. You want to stop it, you try to draw attention to the problem, but they don’t believe you “just because it is” and call your daughter lazy. The case is covered up.

So live with it.