Russian figure skating champion Yulia Lipnitskaya announced on Aug. 28 that she would be retiring from the sport after admitting to receiving treatment for anorexia. Lipnitskaya, who won the 2014 Olympic medal at just 15 years old, was Russia’s youngest champion in 78 years and was often referred to as a “tiny genius” among the Russian media because of her mature presence and captivating competitive abilities.
However, Lipnitskaya’s mother told Russian news agency, TASS, that the figure skater had informed the Russian Figure Skating Federation (RFSF) of her decision to retire in April, after “returning from Europe, where she underwent three-month treatment from anorexia.”
Unfortunately, Lipnitskaya is just one of many competitive and professional skaters who have chosen to seek treatment or leave the sport due to an eating disorder. Her retirement is neither surprising nor uncommon in the figure skating world.
Jennifer Kirk, a U.S. medalist and the 2002 Four Continents champion, turned heads in 2009 when she announced that her 2006 retirement was due to an eating disorder. Kirk, who has since become one of the most prominent voices in figure skating for eating disorder awareness, partially blames the current judging system for exacerbating the issue.
The system rewards more points for harder jumps, which naturally require a leaner, more aerodynamic body type. Therefore, athletes with curvier builds are at a disadvantage.
“It is a lot harder to execute triple-triple combinations and very difficult triple jumps when one’s body is more womanly,” Kirk told The Huffington Post.
However, Kirk largely attributes her anorexia to the fact that figure skating is such an image-driven sport. Once skaters start advancing to more elite levels, “everything is picked apart — including their costume, hair color and style, weight, attitude, you name it,” Kirk said. “After years of having their fate in the hands of judges and being pressured to look and act a certain way in order to achieve the best results, a skater’s self-esteem becomes basically nonexistent,” she said.
Kirk’s statements certainly align with Lipnitskaya’s reality. In more than one instance, Lipnitskaya’s responses to social media comments highlighted her growing frustration with the sport’s focus on weight and body image. In one instance, after photos led to speculations that she was pregnant, the Olympic champion commented, “Do I have to weigh 37 kilograms for the rest of my life for you to be happy? I’ve already lost enough weight.”
Two-time U.S. champion Gracie Gold, who announced just days after Lipnitskaya that she would be taking five months off before the 2018 Olympics to seek “professional help,” has dealt with a similar level of public scrutiny about her weight. While Gold has not specifically disclosed an eating disorder as the reason for her break, she has made a number of weight-related comments throughout the past few competitive seasons.
After a poor Skate America performance in October of 2016, Gold made a comment to a reporter regarding her weight which quickly drew public concern.
“You don’t often see … there aren’t that many … you just don’t see overweight figure skaters for a reason,” said Gold (via USA Today). “It’s just something I’ve struggled with this whole year and in previous seasons. It’s just difficult when you’re trying to do the difficult triple jumps. It’s something that I am addressing but it’s obviously not where it should be for this caliber of competition,” she said.
Indeed, Kirk speculated that the vast majority of skaters are battling some kind of eating disorder, even though it might not be publicly acknowledged.
“I would say about 85 percent of skaters have suffered or are suffering with various forms of disordered eating,” she said.
Nancy Kerrigan, the 1994 Olympic silver medalist, also struggled with an eating disorder, specifically during the training period leading up to the Olympics. The combined stress of recovering from a serious knee injury and the constant media attention eventually resulted in drastic weight loss.
In an interview with People, she discussed how her intense training regiment was burning more calories than she was consuming.
“I lost a whole bunch of weight before competing because I was working out for hours,” she recalled in the interview. She also attributed her disorder to the stress of the public eye and a desire to control the stressful environment around her: “A lot of times people see it as something that they can control, but, frankly, the eating disorder starts to control you,” Kerrigan said.
Though Kerrigan recovered with help from friends and family, she recently announced an upcoming documentary project, Why Don’t You Lose 5 Pounds, which she hopes will raise awareness about the dangers and prevalence of eating disorders amongst athletes.
While there is no overarching solution to the prevalence of eating disorders in figure skating, many skaters have offered suggestions for preventing them: the most common of which is simply acknowledging the disorders and discussing the causes. Kirk suggested that even talking more about eating disorders can help eliminate the stigma of weakness or shame, and eventually facilitate change. As she stated to HuffPost, “The more people speak about their struggle and recovery the less shameful the disorder will become.”
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