In case you missed it, there was some seriously good Olympic figure skating this weekend. Sure, yes, Adam Rippon is a national delight and Mirai Nagasu’s mind-blowing triple axel was the thing of Olympic dreams, but let’s not forget that an 18-year-old Russian figure skater also rolled out a short program with the theme of “clinical death.”
Yep, if you were watching NBC’s enhanced coverage of the events, you were treated to the fun trivia that Medvedeva “said that her short program is about ‘the flight of the soul’ as it leaves someone’s body at the point of ‘clinical death.'”
Festive! Apparently souls get a pass through the bedazzler before fleeing this mortal realm.
The routine itself was — forgive the pun — breathtaking, set to Frédéric Chopin’s famous Nocturne in C-sharp minor (which is as mournful and fitting a death song as any). In fact, Medvedeva earned herself a world-record-breaking 81.06, the highest score ever for the ladies’ short program. Her performance also earned 10 points for her team, Olympic Athletes from Russia (you’ll recall the Russian Olympic team is banned from this year’s games).
For those of you unfamiliar with the young Russian’s body of work, when it comes to themes and music Medvedeva has a, er, taste for the unusual. She raised eyebrows at the World Figure Skating Championships last year when she skated to a score excerpt from the film “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” that included audio from 9/11. She set a world record with that routine too, and won gold.
On a lighter note, Medvedeva is also an unapologetic anime and Kpop fan, and she is well-known in certain corners of the internet for her delightful and completely batcrackers routine set to the “Sailor Moon” transformation theme.
