The beauty from some Olympic skaters was not worth seeing a child emotionally broken on live television.

I didn’t watch any of the video, and I have no desire to. This article was painful to read.

“I hate it! … I don’t want to do anything in figure skating ever in my life! … Everyone has a gold medal, and I don’t!”

One can forgive a teenage girl for having an emotional response to disappointment in a high-stakes situation, but Trusova’s reaction was an ugly display of poor sportsmanship, happening mere feet from a devastated Valieva. Trusova would later have to be coaxed into even coming back onto the ice to accept her second place finish.

As Valieva retreated into the bowels of the stadium, the broadcast finally cut back to Shcherbakova, the Olympic gold medalist. She stood alone, joyless, clutching a teddy bear in silence. She shifted uneasily, eyes cast down to the floor, unsure where to look. She sat back down again on a couch, no one on her team anywhere in sight. It was perhaps the loneliest image I have ever seen at the Olympics.

Why was Shcherbakova all alone? For context, one must know that all three of these Russian teenagers are coached by Eteri Tutberidze. Ostensibly, the members of her team were off attending to the meltdowns of Valieva and Trusova. –Chris Schleicher, Slate