A Welcome Change

Tara Lipinski was 14 when she won the 1997 World Championship and 15 when she won Olympic gold in Nagano.  By the time the next Olympics rolled around, she was retired as a competitive figure skater.  Yulia Lipnitskaya was the 15-year-old darling of the Sochi Games.  By 2017, she was retired.  At the PyenongChang Olympics, it was Alina Zagitova (15) and Evgeniya Medvedeva (an old lady of 18).  They, too, retired before the next Olympics.  Do you sense a theme here?

Then in Beijing, of course, it was Kamila Valiyeva.  We were in awe of her brilliance during the team event before she became the center of the controversy that dominated the second week of the Games.  And we all saw what happened after her free skate, which served as a painful reminder that Vailyeva, too, is just 15.

That's the important point.  Valiyeva isn't the first 15-year-old prodigy to dazzle at an Olympics.  But she will be the last.  Because the ISU has finally raised the minimum age to compete at the senior level.  Come the Milano-Cortina Olympics four years from now, the minimum age will be 17.  It's a long overdue change that the sport desperately needed.  And figure skating will be better for it.

Momentum for raising the age limit was already growing before the Olympics.  What happened in Beijing was simply the last straw that pushed things over the edge.  So, if there's anything good to come out of the whole Valiyeva saga, it might be that.

I'm not just talking about the loophole that made it so that Valiyeva was able to compete in the women's event, either.  I'm talking about the rest of it.  Because it seems highly likely that Valieyva, as well as gold and silver medalists Anna Shcherbakova and Alexandra Trusova will be one-and-done Olympians.  Just like Zagitova, Medvedeva, Lipnitskaya and 2014 gold medalist Adelina Sotnikova before them.

It's a well-known fact that Eteri Tutberidze, the coach of the Russian team prefers younger skaters.  After all, they're the ones who can not only do the quads, they can do them over and over again in practice.  Then, once their body fully forms and they're no longer able to do the jumps and spins with ease, they're phased out and replaced with a new crop of 14- and 15-year-olds.  (Which is the exact same thing that happens with a lot of Olympic gymnasts, who may only get one Games as a teenager and that's it.)

What too often goes unmentioned is the toll that repeatedly performing all of those jumps and spins take on those young skaters' bodies.  When you're 14 or 15, you might feel invincible.  Those things come easy, so you don't even feel it.  That can't be sustained, however.  In fact, it leads to the long-term injuries that cause these women to retire from competitive skating when they've barely hit their 20th birthday (if they even have).

Alysa Liu is already retired.  She won her first U.S. title at 13 and her second at 14.  Liu was the first American woman to land both a triple Axel and a quad in the same competition, and she was the top American at the 2022 Olympics, where she finished seventh.  Liu followed that up with a bronze at the World Championships.  It sure looked like she'd be one of the top skaters to watch heading into Milano-Cortina.  Until she retired in April at the ripe old age of 16.

We don't know if there's an underlying reason behind Liu's decision to retire, but it wouldn't be surprising to find out if it's injury-related.  Again, she wouldn't be the first one.  Medvedeva retired with a chronic back injury.  Lipnitskaya sought treatment for an eating disorder.  Sotnikova had spinal fusion surgery.  Tara Lipinski, of course, has since become a member of NBC's broadcast team, and it was during an Olympic figure skating broadcast that she detailed the various injuries she had to deal with after her career.

To their credit, the ISU recognized the problem.  While all the young phenoms with their dynamic technical routines were spectacular, was it really good for the sport for them to disappear as quickly as they arrive?  And how healthy is it for those skaters to be doing that to their not-fully-developed bodies, especially when the early retirements and chronic injuries of others are well-documented?

As the Valiyeva saga illustrated, there's also the different legal statuses of athletes in the same competition.  Since the 15-year-olds are considered "protected persons," there's one set of anti-doping rules for them and another for those 16 and older.  That alone is not enough of a reason to raise the age limit.  But when you consider it with the other factors, it's more proof that raising the age limit was the right call.

The way they're doing it makes a lot of sense, too.  It'll still be 15 for the upcoming season, then go to 16 in 2023-24 before finally settling at 17 in 2024-25.  So, all that means is the age limit moves up with the 15-year-olds who first become eligible for senior competition this season.  They won't be affected.  They just won't have anybody younger than them come onto the scene.  They'll get three years to establish themselves without having to worry about being overtaken by the latest prodigy.

Hopefully this will have a positive impact on figure skating in several respects.  For starters, it levels the playing field.  We may also see longer careers that span multiple Olympics.  And, without the pressure to win gold medals at such a young age, the toll on those teenage bodies should be much less.

Think about what this means for those junior skaters.  Yes, it's unfortunate that they'll now need to wait a little longer before they're eligible for senior competitions.  But they'll also get a chance to grow into their bodies without subjecting them to the punishment of the intense training required to be elite at such a young age.

Will it eliminate some (if not all) of the spectacular jumping?  Most likely.  So what if it does?  There's more to figure skating than jumps.  Maybe the new age limit can help bring the sport back to that, too.  Yet another reason why this is a win for everybody.

Figure skating has a long history of young prodigies in the women's event, dating all the way back to an 11-year-old Sonja Henie in the first Winter Olympics nearly a century ago.  There have been numerous 15- and 16-year-old champions in the years since.  There no longer can be after the 2023-24 season.  Which will be an adjustment, but a necessary one.  Because raising the age limit to 17 wasn't just the right move, it was long overdue.