A Smashing Cup of China Recap

Luu / Wikimedia Commons 

Too soon?

Once again, I didn't have time to watch the whole competition this weekend, so I am only commenting on what I saw, which was the men's and ladies' freeskates.

We'll start with the ladies. The rumors are true. Yulia Lipnitskaya is human, and not a robot. I don't want to say she skated poorly, because that's not even accurate. She straight-up gave up halfway through her freeskate. That's more shameful for a championship-level skater, in my opinion, than skating and falling. I don't know what she needs to work more on, her skating or her attitude, but she better buck up. She called it "the worst skate of my life." I hope she learns something from it.

And now for the men. Forget the performances for a second and let's focus on the crash heard round the skating world. Japan's Yuzuru Hanyu and China's Yan Han had a high-speed collision during their freeskate warm-up. Both were bleeding from the face/head, and the competition was suspended until their injuries could be assessed. Both returned to the ice about 45 minutes later and skated, bandaged up. Hanyu ended up with a respectable silver medal. Han ended up sixth.

Without any further explanation, that seems like a noble thing to do in our sports-obsessed world, right? The QB gets clocked, but pushes the docs away, says "put me in coach!" and rallies for the final play that wins the game. The audience goes wild. Well, at least in figure skating, it's not noble. It's freaking dangerous.

Both men could barely keep their $&#! together out there. A visibly disoriented Hanyu fell five times, and was a half-conscious, hot mess in the kiss-n-cry.

Hanyu's coach, Brian Orser, told the media he let Hanyu skate because he wasn't showing signs of concussion and because he insisted on skating. I'm not alone in thinking this was a terrible call on Orser's part, and the part of whoever was responsible for letting Yan skate as well. Regardless of whether either had a concussion or other serious injury that would have been exacerbated during the performance, the emotional trauma of the situation took their heads out of the game, and that can cause serious injury in and of itself. It's not Worlds or the Olympics. You can skip Cup of China and not miss out on your big chance. Sometimes looking out for No.1 is not skating.

I get that skaters put blood, sweat and tears into training for these events, and not competing feels like a sign of weakness or failure. But it would be all for naught anyway if they incur a catastrophic injury because of bad judgment. There's no policy for prohibiting skaters from competing after a warm-up crash like that, but perhaps there should be.