We first watched the Winter Olympics while on a  vacation in Florida in 1994.  Unfortunately, it rained three days in a row, leaving us without much else to do. Oddly enough, it’s the one thing I remember about that trip.  Picaboo  Street was a star skier, and everything about her was  fascinating.  David Letterman’s mom was CBS’s Olympic correspondent for the event.   It was entertaining, exciting, and wholesome.  Sadly, those days seem to be gone forever. When athletes start doping, and we have to watch  a sobbing child being shouted at by her coach because she fell on the ice, it’s all downhill.    A blatant show of child abuse taints the Winter Olympics.

Kamila Valieva’s  figure  skating was like a beautiful ballet.  Since she’s the age of one of my granddaughters, I found it  touching that this young girl had achieved so much.

Then came the report that she had tested positive for some kind of heart drug, several weeks before the games began.  Why in the world would the results have come in so late, and at such a precarious time? They said she tested negative later on, so I don’t know why this would have disqualified her.  But that’s only my opinion, and there’s a lot that I don’t know.

What I do know, is that all this negative publicity created tremendous pressure on this lovely  girl, who is still only a child in the eyes of the law.  Her coaches had a decision to make at that point.  Either  have  her withdraw from the competition, or let her decide what to do, based on her own feelings and inner strength. Instead, they pushed her out onto the world stage, not caring at all whether it might be too much of a challenge for an adolescent to handle.

The result was too painful to contemplate or watch.  In front of thousands of spectators, she tripped and fell, not once, but several  times.  Obviously, she was having a meltdown.  And what did her coach do?  She yelled and screamed  while the poor girl shuddered with sobs.  I would just as soon have seen someone kick a dog, or lash a person with a horsewhip. as witness that scene.  The  Russian coach-from-hell should  be expelled from her profession.  There’s now  a dark stain on the Winter Olympics that may be indelible.