The Winter Olympic Games 2018 in Pyeongchang have become a difficult test for the Russian sports community. But, despite all the ups and downs, the team currently has 13 medals and two new Athletes, who is now 18 years old, and 15-year-old Alina Zagitova And at the last Olympics in Sochi, the star was 15-year-old Yulia Lipnitskaya, who made the greatest contribution to the victory of the Russian team (20 points for the first two places). Remarkably, she, like Medvedev and Zagitova, was the ward of one of the best Russian coaches - Eteri Tutberidze. What happened to the world famous athlete, who is now 19 years old?
On the Olympic Games in Sochi 2014, Lipnitskaya became the team champion and the second youngest Olympic champion in figure skating in the history of the Winter Olympics. In the short program of the tournament, she perfectly performed all the necessary elements and impressed with her unique stretching, which is characteristic only of professional gymnasts and ballerinas. The free program, which Lipnitskaya performed to the music from Schindler's List, glorified the skater all over the world. The director of the film, Steven Spielberg, wrote thanks to Julia for the fact that she was able to carry the image of a girl in a red coat (from the film) through the entire performance.
After winning the team competition in Sochi, Lipnitskaya began the most difficult period - media pressure, increased attention, bordering on excitement. It was no longer possible to live and train in peace. In honor of the champion, they wanted to name an ice rink, her photo was on the cover of the Times, she was begged to attend numerous social events and television shows. Coach Lipnitskaya admitted that during this period Yulia did not have a single correct workout, although it was then that she needed to hone her jumping technique. At the 2015 Russian Championship, she took only 9th place, and because of this she was not included in the national team at the European Championship.
“Now I understand why some athletes end their careers after the Games. People are just sucked out, all of them are drawn out.”
By 2015, the relationship between the ward and her coach had deteriorated markedly. In the sports community, Eteri is known as a strict and demanding mentor who always sets the bar high for her athletes. To date, Tutberidze's uncompromising condition is the removal of parents from training children, since there is a negative experience with Yulia Lipnitskaya. In one of the interviews, she said that Yulia's mother actively interfered in her daughter's classes.
In November 2015, Lipnitskaya changed her coach, choosing Alexei Urmanov as her mentors. At that time, Tutberidze was already coaching Lipnitskaya's competitors - the young Medvedev and Zagitova, and Urmanov was the only one who was ready to deal with the exceptional Yulia. Weight problems again made themselves felt in 2016 - Lipnitskaya gained extra pounds, which motivated the athlete to actively lose weight. To lose weight, she went to extreme measures - she ate almost nothing. Outcome: anorexia. By 2017, the sports performance of the athlete began to deteriorate, and in August of that year. A year later, on September 12, 2017, Yulia gave an interview in which she admitted:
Recently it became known that Lipnitskaya decided to return to big sport again, but as a coach. On her Vkontakte page, she informed her subscribers about the opening of the Ilinykh-Lipnitskaya Figure Skating Academy. The main office of the school is located in Moscow, and training camps and master classes will be held in different cities of Russia. As follows from the post on the network, the first training camp will be held in the Tver region in March. In addition to Lipnitskaya, the 2014 Olympic champion Elena Ilyinykh and the silver medalist of the Winter Youth Olympic Games Maxim Miroshkin will act as coaches. Numerous sportswoman fans wish her good luck and believe in her new victories.
Yulia Lipnitskaya's mother said in an interview with TASS: “Yulya informed the leadership of the federation about her plans to end her career back in April, immediately after returning from Europe, where she underwent a three-month treatment for anorexia. I note that now my daughter lives only on an Olympic scholarship. She does not receive a salary from the federation, although she is on the payroll of the national team.”
Interestingly, the president of the FFKKR, the Soviet figure skater Alexander Gorshkov, as they say in such cases, pretended to be a hose. He said that he had no such information about Lipnitskaya's departure. But who is more important - mom or some kind of official?
What did Lipnitskaya win?
The golden girl at the age of 15 won the team competition at the Olympics in Sochi. She performed both the short program and the free program. In both, she became the best, gaining 20 points each.
Thanks to the team victory, Yulia Lipnitskaya, at 15 years 249 days old, became the second of the youngest Olympic figure skating champions in the history of the Winter Olympics after Maxi Gerber. The German competed in pair skating and won the home Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 1936 when she was 15 years 4 months and 5 days old.
But there was still the silver of the 2014 World Championship, the victory at the European Championship in the same year. Runner-up in the 2013 Grand Prix Series Final.
Why did everything fall apart
Firstly, Lipnitskaya left her coach Eteri Tutberidze, who had been working with her since she was 11 years old. Mom Daniela Leonidovna and daughter Yulia drove from Yekaterinburg to Moscow by car. We rented an apartment, but there was a time when we even had to sleep in the car. All in order to get to Tutberidze in SDYUSSHOR No. 37. The girl had extraordinary flexibility, stretching. She had a unique ability to accelerate rotation.
Then, after the victory in Sochi, the coach and the student quarreled, not getting along in character. In addition, Tutberidze has another hyper-talented girl who now dominates the world of women's figure skating - Evgenia Medvedev.
In general, Lipnitskaya went to coach Alexei Urmanov, but did not achieve anything with him. Secondly, injuries. They followed Yulia on the heels. It got ridiculous - she slipped on the sidewalk in winter, injured her hip joint and lower back.
Thirdly, physiology. A girl at 15 can become a champion, but then she turns into a woman. She is gaining weight, her hips are expanding ... They began to whisper about Lipnitskaya that she had grown fat. Problems with anorexia arose when Yulia freaked out and began to dramatically lose weight. But, of course, she could no longer compete with Medvedeva. Her train has left.
Yulia Lipnitskaya was like Samantha Smith, the big-lashed, round-eyed American schoolgirl from Maine who wrote a letter to Yury Andropov, general secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, at the height of the Cold War. Then she flew to our country, and the whole Soviet Union fell in love with her.
Before Sochi, no one really knew about Lipnitskaya. After Sochi, her fame was incredible. We can say for sure that this girl beat everyone in the rating at the Olympics in Sochi. No one was around!
On February 10, 2014, Lipnitskaya appeared on the cover of the European and Asian versions of Time magazine. Yulia's name topped the list of global Twitter trends (just like the news about her departure is leading there now).
She entered the top three "People of the Year" of the most popular transnational companies Google Inc and Yandex, and European publications recognized Lipnitskaya as the athlete of the year.
Julia has become one of the most popular people in Russia. For the performance of the program on the theme of the film "Schindler's List", its director Steven Spielberg sent a letter of gratitude to Lipnitskaya "for being able to carry the image of a girl in a red coat through the whole performance."
Today, June 5, marks the 20th anniversary of Yulia Lipnitskaya, the youngest Olympic champion in the history of women's figure skating.
Yulia Lipnitskaya was made by her mother - both literally and figuratively: Yulia's mother Daniela devoted her whole life to her daughter without a trace. Papa Vyacheslav was not noted for his upbringing: as he once went to pay his military duty to the Fatherland, he never returned to his family. Mom Daniela, having lost support, she herself created a star scenario for Yulia and brought it to life.
To begin with, she directed the girl’s energy that was in full swing into a peaceful direction: in the figure skating section, where her mother took the three-year-old Yulia, her hyperactivity was converted into a result. Explicit abilities immediately attracted attention, and Daniela's mother decided to make a superstar out of her daughter.
It was in Yekaterinburg, money was scarce, however, Daniela found an opportunity to rent an apartment right next to the Lokomotiv skating rink, where Yulia trained. From the very first competitions, it became clear that at her age there were no competitors in the city. Therefore, we must move to Moscow.
The legend says that little Yulia herself made a choice, saying that she only wanted to train with, which then, at the beginning of 2009, was as far from its current status as Yulia Lipnitskaya was from Sochi's Olympic gold. It was this goal that united them: a talented coach and a student who literally fell from the sky, who, despite her tender age, was ready to gnaw ice for the sake of new victories.
People who saw how frantically, literally for wear and tear, little Yulia worked, were only amazed. But the result was obvious. Her Moscow life instantly filled with meaning, and serious results came quickly enough. First - at the junior championships of Russia, then - at the Grand Prix and the World Junior Championships. In all international competitions of the 2011/12 season, Yulia Lipnitskaya became the first, and in the pre-Olympic season, on which big stakes were made, she began to ride for adults.
At the same time, by the age of 13, Yulia's medical record was full of the most incredible injuries and injuries: from simple bruises and sprains to a concussion and a pinched nerve. And the moral and psychological state, too, as Yulia admitted after the Sochi triumph, was far from ideal. " I endured Yulia said. - Endured every day, every hour. Not every single workout, but figure skating in general».
Before the Olympics in Sochi, Yulia won her first “big” title, becoming the first European champion from Russia in the last 8 years. The main competitor in the national team, Adelina Sotnikova, and five-time European champion Carolina Kostner, who was almost twice older than Yulia, were more than 7 points behind.
At the Games themselves, Yulia performed the main part in team competitions. Her contribution to the victory of the Russian team was the most significant: 20 points for the first two places with really great skating. Even Russian President Vladimir Putin, not prone to displaying excessive emotions, gave her a standing ovation, and later honored her with personal thanks.
Having become the Olympic champion in the team tournament, Yulia broke the so-called "age record" in women's single skating. Prior to that, it was owned by American figure skater Tara Lipinski, who won the 1998 Olympics at the age of 15 years 255 days. On the day of victory in Sochi, Yulia was 6 days less.
The Russian team won Olympic gold On February 9, 2014, and the very next day, worldwide fame fell upon Yulia. She was placed on the cover of the European and Asian versions of Time magazine. The word Lipnitskaya topped the list of global Twitter trends. She entered the top three "People of the Year" according to Google and Yandex. For the performance in Sochi of the program on the theme of the film "Schindler's List", the famous director Steven Spielberg sent Yulia a letter of gratitude.
However, the press of general attention very quickly began to not even burden Yulia, but to oppress her. " I don't have strength left, it was really hard for me, she admitted later. - I am not a public person. On the rink, too, everything stopped working. At some point, I generally ceased to understand how to live and what to do. I didn't care».
This "doesn't care" was directly reflected in the results. After Sochi, Yulia seemed to have broken down, and almost in a physical sense: almost all of her skates ended either in blunders or falls. The year ended with a failure at the Russian Championship (9th place) and the first announcement of an imminent retirement.
As it turned out later, at that moment irresolvable contradictions had already arisen between Lipnitskaya and Tutberidze. In the summer of 2015, they ended in a break, and in the fall, Yulia moved to the group with Alexei Urmanov.
At the peak of Yulia's popularity, her father, who had sunk into oblivion, appeared in the information space. More precisely, a person claiming the closest degree of kinship. Someone Vyacheslav, an Israeli citizen, said that in a past life that he spent in Yekaterinburg, he met a girl Daniela, and Yulia is the fruit of their love. Vyacheslav was immediately invited to Russia and shown on TV.
Yulia herself refused to make contact with the "dad". " According to various programs, a man who dares to call himself my father roams. E That person is an outright scammer. I want to put a gag in his mouth. It's impossible to listen to this! As for my father, I know perfectly well who he is and where he lives. Therefore, I warn you: if such cases repeat, my “dads” or “relatives” appear on the channels, obsessed with the desire to promote at my expense, then we will meet them in court", Lipnitskaya is quoted by Aif.ru/sport.
Three and a half years have passed since the day when Lipnitskaya became the Olympic champion of Sochi, and on September 9, 2017, the Figure Skating Federation officially announced the end of Yulia Lipnitskaya's sports career.
This was accompanied by a whole wave of rumors about Yulia's health, which, unfortunately, had serious grounds. Here are the psychological problems associated with the test of glory. And individual physiological characteristics (tendency to gain weight). And the anorexia that became the result of the fight against excess weight, from which Yulia was treated for three months in Germany. Finally, age: at the age of 18-19, for modern women's figure skating, you are already practically a “grandmother”.
But time is the best healer. In recent months, Yulia has tried herself as a TV commentator, hinted that she wants to take up coaching, information has appeared on social networks that the Figure Skating Academy has been launched, to which Yulia is directly related. In the end, she had a beloved man.
The Olympic champion of the team tournament in Sochi, figure skater Yulia Lipnitskaya, has decided to end her career. According to experts, this was not a spontaneous decision. All the career development of the young athlete led to this.
Girl in a red coat
In 2014, Yulia Lipnitskaya became the Olympic champion in the team tournament. She performed a program to music from Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List. The performance of a girl in a red coat was a revelation both for specialists and for those who had nothing to do with figure skating. Among them is the creator of "Schindler's List" - Spielberg, who, after the performance of the Russian woman, told her in a letter - the whole family watched the rental with tears in their eyes.
Only on the official Olympic YouTube channel, the video with her program, staged by the famous Russian choreographer Ilya Averbukh, was viewed by more than six million users.
In the personal tournament, everything did not work out for the athlete in the best way - having made mistakes in the short program, Lipnitskaya became the fifth, in the free program - the sixth. The athlete completed her performance at the Olympics in the fifth final place, which did not prevent her from becoming the face of the Games in Sochi and one of the most beloved in Russia and respected athletes in the world.
Growth problems and old traumas
After the Games, Lipnitskaya had a hard time - her body "gifted" the hostess with all the problems of growth.
Failure began to haunt her. Suffice it to say that at the post-Olympic championship of Russia in 2015, she became only the ninth, without even getting into the national team for the European Championship. The podium of the championship was then occupied by only Russians - Elizaveta Tuktamysheva, Elena Radionova and Anna Pogorilaya.
In November 2015, the athlete decides to change her coach, leaving Tutberidze for Olympic champion Lillehammer Alexei Urmanov and moved from Moscow to Sochi. Unfortunately, there has been no rapid progress. At the 2016 Russian Championships, the athlete was seventh, joining the national team for the European Championships only as a substitute.
The pre-Olympic season also did not give the athlete much success - having won the short program at the starting tournament in Bratislava, the figure skater felt the pain of an aggravated injury. Then - the missed stage of the Grand Prix series in Chicago and the Moscow Grand Prix, where, due to pain, she had to stop performing in a free program.
Weight loss and health deterioration
There were many speculations as to what might have happened. But the famous Russian coach Tatyana Tarasova suggested: it seems that the problems are associated with the weight loss of the athlete and, as a result, with a lack of the most important potassium and magnesium for the body.
The constant struggle of the overweight athlete led to the fact that Lipnitskaya was forced to undergo treatment for anorexia. After the failure at the Moscow stage of the Grand Prix, the athlete practically disappeared from the public space, occasionally posting on her pages on social networks.
In December, almost on the eve of the start of the Russian Championship, Lipnitskaya fell on the way from training, after which it was decided to skip the Russian Championship figure skater, the qualifying start for the European Championship in Ostrava.
Julia is a star. Some stars shine for a long time, while others will flare up like crazy - and go out. But she covered everything. I want to wish her a wonderful life, she deserves it, because she is a very good, very smart girl and very kind, ”Tarasova commented on the skater’s decision to end her career.
In turn Ilya Averbukh reacted to the news in this way: “It’s very sad, because Yulia Lipnitskaya has a certain 25th frame that attracts you like a magnet to her performance: you can’t understand why her skating touches you, but it has just such an effect. This can be called charisma, talent, but Yulia has it, and this was especially evident at the Olympics, - said Averbukh. - It is a pity that this has not been developed - the technical side of the issue also played a role. I think that the requirements of the coaches collided with their own ambitions, and we got the final that was expected: after the Olympics, Yulia never made it to the European Championship or the World Championship.
Biography of Yulia Lipnitskaya
Yulia Vyacheslavovna Lipnitskaya was born June 5, 1998 In Ekaterinburg. She was raised by her mother, Daniela Lipnitskaya, who gave her daughter her last name.
In 2002 Yulia Lipnitskaya began to study figure skating in the Yekaterinburg children's and youth sports school "Lokomotiv". Specialization - single skating. Elena Levkovets became her first coach.
In 2009 she moved to Moscow with her mother, where she continued figure skating at the Sambo-70 Sports and Education Center under the guidance of coach Eteri Tutberidze.
In December 2011 in Quebec (Canada) won the final of the Grand Prix in figure skating among juniors of the 2011-2012 season.
December 2011 and December 2013 became the silver medalist of the Russian championships, in both cases losing to Adeline Sotnikova.
February 2012 became the champion of Russia among juniors. In the same year in Minsk (Belarus) she took first place at the World Junior Championships. In 2013 in Milan (Italy) became the silver medalist of similar competitions, losing only to compatriot Elena Radionova.
December 2013 in Fukuoka (Japan) took second place in the final of the Grand Prix in figure skating of the 2013-2014 season. The Japanese Mao Asada excelled at the competition.
January 17, 2014 in Budapest (Hungary) Yulia Lipnitskaya won the European Figure Skating Championship.
February 9, 2014 As part of the Russian national team, she won the XXII Winter Olympic Games in Sochi (Krasnodar Territory) in team figure skating competitions. Lipnitskaya performed at the Games with a free program choreographed by Ilya Averbukh to music from Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List. She became the youngest Russian woman to win the highest award at the Winter Olympics: at the time of her performance, the figure skater was 15 years and 249 days old. Lipnitskaya beat the achievement of Ekaterina Gordeeva, who became the champion of the 1988 Games in Calgary (Canada) in pair skating with Sergei Grinkov. At the time of the victory, Gordeeva was 16 years 268 days old.
March 29, 2014 in Saitama (Japan) became the silver medalist of the World Figure Skating Championship, losing only to Mao Asada.
November 2015 Yulia Lipnitskaya left the group of Eteri Tutberidze, after which she began to train under the guidance of Alexei Urmanov, having moved from Moscow to Sochi. However, in December of the same year, at the Russian Championship, she became only the seventh and became part of the national team for the 2016 European Championship as a substitute.
December 2016 the figure skater missed the Russian championship due to a hip injury resulting from a fall on a slippery sidewalk.
Honored Master of Sports of Russia (2014).
She was awarded the Order of Friendship (2014), the distinction "For Merit to the Sverdlovsk Region" III degree (2014).
More recently, she was considered the heroine of Russia ...
finest hour
The pupil of Eteri Tutberidze, figure skater Yulia Lipnitskaya, gained worldwide fame at the 2014 Olympics. In Sochi, Julia made the greatest contribution to the team gold medal Russian figure skaters(20 points for the first two places in the short and free programs).
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who watched the performance from the audience, gave the young figure skater a standing ovation, and for the performance of the program on the theme of the film "Schindler's List", its director Steven Spielberg sent a letter of gratitude to Lipnitskaya "for being able to carry the image of a girl in a red coat through the entire performance ".
The attention of the media and fans, pressure, a personal medal hung around Yulia's neck in advance and excessive excitement did not allow the 15-year-old athlete to successfully perform in the individual tournament - Lipnitskaya made mistakes at the box office, eventually taking only fifth place.
In 2014, Yulia Lipnitskaya's popularity was colossal: she appeared on the cover of Time magazine, topped the list of global trends on Twitter, entered the top three "People of the Year" of transnational companies Google and Yandex.
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After the resounding success in Sochi, there was no continuation of the high flight: Yulia began to have problems with weight control, as well as disagreements with the coach. Tension and misunderstanding grew, and, in the fall of 2015, Lipnitskaya, after six years spent in the group of Eteri Tutberidze, went to Alexei Urmanov.
This did not solve the skater's problems. The body matured, the flaws in the technique became more and more noticeable, the “crown” jumps and rotations stopped working, the programs did not shoot, the skater was pursued by injuries, she over and over again disrupted the rentals and did not get into the national team. At the end of 2016, Lipnitskaya openly admitted that she had anorexia and would have to undergo a three-month course of treatment.
After rehabilitation, in April 2017, Yulia informed the leadership of the FFKKR about her plans to end her career, and in September 2017 an official statement was made about this - Lipnitskaya left big sport.
The 2013-2014 season remained the brightest in Yulia's career, bringing her the title of European champion and Olympic champion.
Where is Yulia Lipnitskaya now?
Julia lives in Moscow. The athlete prefers not to talk about her life: “I am not a public person. It has always been so. Since childhood, I have been a very strong introvert. To talk to a stranger, I had to make an effort on myself. Now I communicate much easier with different people, I have become much more sociable. But I have already developed certain habits, stereotypes that I follow. And I don't think that I need to climb into every newspaper, every program where they call me. I do not welcome it and I will not do it.
What is Yulia Lipnitskaya doing now?
After the end of her career, Yulia said that she was interested in sports management, but she did not see herself as a coach: “Most of all, I want to find a business that will be interesting to do in life. Now I am at a crossroads, because there are many proposals, different options, projects ... But I cannot and do not want to come somewhere just to sit in the role of a wedding general. I want to participate myself, to do what would be most interesting to me.”
For some time, the skater commented on figure skating competitions, studied English with a tutor and was looking for something to her liking.
In February 2018, the “Academy of Champions” was opened in Moscow, where the main coaches were Yulia Lipnitskaya, Sochi 2014 Olympic champion in ice dancing Elena Ilinykh and 2012 Youth Olympic medalist in pair skating Maxim Miroshkin.
The Ilinykh/Lipnitskaya partnership was unexpected only at first glance. Elena recalls the beginning of her friendship with Yulia in this way: “I don’t remember the year, but I think it was the Russian Championship. And I had no idea that we would become friends, but it seemed to me that in front of me ... an angel (smiles). At the same time, she looked like a very strong person with a big heart.
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Yes, she was still a child, and I was a little older. I remember watching the women's single with my mom and other people and saying, "Listen, this is amazing!" Then I approached and asked her to take a picture. She was so tiny…..and said, “Okay” (shrugs, smiling to show Julia's sincere reaction) – and now we have this photo. I think I was 16 and she was 12. But even then she was amazing.
And I can't say that we were best friends from that moment, even if we got to the same competitions, we didn't have time to talk. So it's not that we always went hand in hand - she worked, she had her own life, and I have mine. But we supported each other in any situation. I have always felt her support. And, if she felt bad, she wrote to me, I answered, and we knew that even if we are far from each other, we are still close. True, I don’t know how this friendship entered our lives - maybe life situations helped, maybe something else .... but now we talk to each other a lot.”
Elena Ilyinykh in one of her interviews spoke about the implementation of the idea: “I had this idea for a long time: to have an Academy and travel with it all over Russia with summer camps, master classes, and possibly all over the world, I thought about it. On New Year's Eve 2018, I had to go to a children's show in St. Petersburg. And I went to this show with Maxim. And while we were sitting on the train from Moscow to St. Petersburg, it was a five-hour trip, I shared my idea with him, and as strange as it was, he had the same idea! We talked a lot about this, analyzed from different angles what we want to do, how to start. I called my lawyer to make sure everything was legally correct, because I didn't want it to look like: "So, I'm an Olympic champion, I'll go and take the money." No, I wanted it to be a good project.
