[Alexandra Baez]

On Watching 15-Year-Old Kamila Valieva’s Record-Breaking Free Skate at the Rostlecom Cup, Sochi, 2021, on YouTube


She glides. I curl and crumple in a heap—
the usual GI distress, one thumb
plunged into an acupressure point.
But here's Kamila, sliding like a ribbon,
stretching, swirling, flying swift as silkspin
across the white and wintery ellipse.

. . . She’s off and back, unfazed by my collapse.
Once more, my fate is widening the gaps
that keep me from my inner champion.
My bid for gold now's getting basics done:
it’s sport against myself—not art, not power.
Meanwhile, Kamila opens like a flower,

turns, then spirals skyward, furled anew,
and lands, “Boléro” surging through each cell.
Ah, what a dash she cuts when doing well
what fortune has allotted her to do!
I’m striving too, but haven’t budged an inch.
This girl's transcendent. That's the sharpest pinch.



See the performance here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCgWCChypBg


Revisions:
S1 L2--"usual GI distress" was "normal neck and stomach pain"
S1 L4--"But here's Kamila" was "But here, Kamila's"
S1 L6--"wintery" was "wintry"
S2 L2--"widening" was "deepening"
S2 L3--"keep" was "part"
S2 L6--"opens" was "unfurls"
S3 L1--was "twists into the air, a skybound screw," then "twists into the ether, furled anew"
S3 L5--removed comma after "striving"
S3 L6--was "I delegate transcendence to this nymph," then "This girl's transcendence? That's the sharpest pinch."