Get Your Skinny Butt to the Podium

David W. Carmichael via Wikimedia Commons

According to media reports, Cup of China silver medalist Yulia Lipnitskaya ditched the awards ceremony last weekend in Shanghai. That's a big no-no in Grand Prix competition, which makes attendance at awards ceremonies mandatory for all medalists. She is to be fined an unspecified amount, likely taken from her $13,000 winnings.

She claims she got her "dates" mixed up. Yeah, right. I declare shenanigans. In fact, I don't care what her excuse is. You win a medal, you show up for the ceremony. You know EXACTLY when it is. They don't make it hard for you to find out when you get your medal at a Grand Prix competition. But you should really do it at any competition. Period. No matter your level or your performance, it's part of your responsibility as a competitor. Get your skinny butt to the podium and accept your fate.

Which in Yulia's case, also happens to include a large sum of prize money. To me, the fact that she didn't show up shows me that she's an ungrateful little brat who was pissed about how badly she performed. Or she's under the thumb of someone who is pissed about how she performed. That's just insulting to her fellow competitors. It says their hard work and talent mean exactly squat, because apparently the silver medal isn't worth anything to the person who won it.

One time at a competition in Lake Placid, I bombed. I fell on a bunch of stuff, popped a bunch of stuff and just generally skated like crap. Much like Lipnitskaya did at Cup of China. I was so ashamed and disappointed with my performance, that I didn't bother to look at the results. So I hopped in the car with my mom and we started driving back downstate. But just before we got onto Rt 73, I remembered that I left my competition music at the rink. So we turned around. My mom parked outside the rink while I ran in. I walked up to the registration table and asked one of the officials I knew for my music.

"Congratulations!" She said.

"Huh?" I replied.

"You didn't see the results?"

"Um, no."

I had gotten the silver medal, for my craptastic performance. So I ran downstairs, made my mom park the car and ran back in to attend the medal ceremony. Because you don't miss the medal ceremony.