mone chiba's layback spin

It’s kind of disgusting how the ISU suddenly got a white American top man that conforms to cishet ideals of masculinity and are hailing him as the second coming of Christ. Wasn’t the first to attempt the quad axel, couldn’t break Nathan’s short and combined program scores, has no individual Olympic medals, and does not have the social impact out of the sport on his home country like skaters like Kaori, Alyssa, or Misha. They’re coping so hard with making this man historically relevant and it just reeks of racism, misogyny, and American exceptionalism. He’s not the first to break world records, he’s not the first to land a jump for the first time, he’s not the first quad spammer but he deserves a trailblazing award for poor skating skills, empty programs, and underrotated jumps 🫩 literally crashing Kaori’s retirement party and she has actually changed the face of this sport and redefined what a champion in women’s skating looks like, skates like, and acts like. With the same skating, if Ilia was skating for Kazakhstan or Ukraine, if he was not white, or if he was visibly queer he would not be getting this treatment.