Anshina Verma Week 15- Attached To Nothing
“I am connected to everything but attached to nothing.”
Since her return to the 2026 Winter Olympics, Alyssa Liu is all anyone can talk about, and I understand the hype.
She’s new, fresh, fun, and her love for her sport truly knows no bounds. Don’t get me wrong, I think she’s a beautiful skater, but who goes to the Olympics for fun? I find her mindset out of touch. Yeah, if I had a rich single dad who could cough up 1 million dollars to let me skate, then I’d probably think the Olympics were for fun too.
But people who struggled, people whose families gave up meals, clothes, and running water, so they could put on a pair of skates, do you think it's just fun for them?
For half of the athletes at the winter Olympics, winning is about getting a paycheck, and in today’s economy, things can’t just be about “fun.” I understand the phrase, love what you do and do what you love but realistically, how many people can afford to do that? Barely any, so as much as I love Alyssa Liu’s healthy rebranding of skating, well, it only seems healthy when you’re enjoying it from a 2 million dollar house in L. A curled up with a 30$ poke bowl in a sweat set that costs 50$ per item of clothing.
I mean, I wish I could have her mindset, but it's simply just not possible. If you really think about it, does the starving athlete, the underdog desperate to prove themselves, have a mindset like hers? People say that with her return to skating, she was the underdog again. But when she quit in 2020, she had just won worlds, Liu WAS the podium, and she did what hundreds of other skaters wished they could do. She just left. How many other professional athletes can do that? Yuna Kim said it herself, the entirety of her skating career, she tried to LIKE skating, the sport she was forced to do for 13 hours a day, so no, Alyssa Liu was never the underdog to say the least. When she stepped back onto the ice, the Olympic favorites literally began clutching their skates. With the Russians gone, she stepped back onto the podium with her return. There is also speculation about the timing of Liu's return. It was a shock to the figure skating community that the Russian team under Eteri Tubiridze was missing from the 2026 Olympics, the team that had dominated skating for the past decade. I agree, the practices of the Russian team were unacceptable, but at the end of the day, they have the better skaters. Liu, with her score of 233 at the 2026 Winter Olympics, and Alexandra Trusova, with her score of 255, won silver in the 2022 Olympics. Liu's refreshing mindset doesn't change the fact that she cannot jump as high, spin as fast, or do as many rotations as Russian teenagers. The numbers speak for themselves.
https://www.hercampus.com/school/tx-state/its-time-for-the-alysa-liu-mindset/
With the rise of fame of Alyssa Liu, I’ve been thinking more about Olympic athletes. I’m reminded of how many contributions to humanity throughout history have been from nobility or the elite. Da Vinci, Lovelace, Pasteur… Why is this? It’s certainly not because the rich are inherently smarter or superior to the poor. As the wealthy, most had an extraordinary amount of leisure time that they could then dedicate to personal enrichment and the pursuit of knowledge. It’s really hard to focus on learning and inventing when you’re a peasant working fourteen hours a day and have to come back to take care of your six children (who also work, by the way).
ReplyDeleteCircling back to the Olympics now. There are a startling number of Olympic athletes (that is to say, more than one; 26.5% working minimum wage jobs in 2024 and almost half of all Olympians report receiving no compensation for competing) who work minimum wage. Alyssa Liu can afford to skate for fun because she doesn’t need to worry about working. Of course, this isn’t her fault—it’s more a product of the system we all live under than anyone else. But it does raise wider questions about the treatment of Olympians when they aren’t being athletes. Are we creating conditions most conducive to their success when they can’t even focus on doing what they love properly?
Building off of Claire's post, people who do have change are extremely wealthy. What I noticed last year in Mr. Howard's class when we were on the feminist unit was that almost all the writers came from well financed positions and extremely well-educated. If I were broke and lived on the outskirts of society, I wouldn't really have the mind to fight for my rights since I would be fighting to make ends meet. If I were someone who worked tooth and nail for hours everyday to win the Olympics and I lost to someone who just did it "just for fun," I would know they are lying and it would have really pissed me off (especially if they are rich). I was never really tapped into the figure skating world, so I did not know of the legendary feats of the Alexandra Trusova and other figure skaters who scored generally higher than Liu. It really does look like she was planning for the Russian's to not participate in this winter Olympics. This still doesn't take anything away from her incredible accomplishment, but simply paints her in a different light.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing!