I want to talk about the two collisions we've seen so far in Olympic figure skating practice and wonder why the North Americans are Like This.
The big one everyone's talking about is the Della Monica/Guarise & James/Radford collision that happened during Pairs practice today. It left Vanessa hobbling off the ice to be checked by a medical team and Matteo getting a fair amount of internet flack for berating Eric about it. But here's the thing - Matteo is right. The collision is 100% Eric's fault. Basic rink etiquette (which all skaters learn from very early on because recognising and honouring who has the right of way is what prevents these kinds of situations from happening in the first place) dictates that if someone's music is playing, they have the right of way. Della Monica/Guarise were in the middle of their run through with their music playing and therefore unquestionably had the right of way in this situation. Not only that but their backs were turned to them - in good awareness fashion, they did see them and were able to brace for impact a little but with how fast everyone moves on skates, they did not have time to move out of the way as some on Twitter claim. James/Radford on the other hand did not have their music playing so did not have the right of way. They chose to do a lift with D/G approaching in their run through which severely limited their ability to move out of the way. As Vanessa was off the ice at the time of the collision, the steering of their skate was entirely up to Eric. Eric (and Vanessa who could have said no to the lift given their ice position) is the responsible party for the collision.
(picture: the blur of James/Radford in a lift quickly approaching Della Monica/Guarise who are in the process of aborting their move and bracing themselves for the impending collision)
So why are people on the internet attacking the Italians as racist?
Back in 2019, an eerily similar crash occurred between Matteo and Vanessa when she was skating with her old partner who will not be named because we don't give CPs attention here. In the following two images, you can see D/G check, approach, and then Matteo bump into Vanessa who had her back turned to him. There were some insinuations at the time that it could have been intentional - racially motivated or just to try and take out their biggest competition. I never saw anything come of either bits of internet accusation but for context to the discussions happening around this new collision, it's important to mention as people are using it as fuel to claim Matteo wanted to take out Vanessa.
(two screencaps from the crash between Guarise and James at 2019 Worlds)
The first collision to happen in Olympic practice received far less attention and I honestly wouldn't know about it if NBC & Peacock hadn't chosen to make it a highlight on their reels. I'm going to do my best to describe it here and pull a few screencaps but I highly recommend watching it if you can - there's just some things video captures way better than I can.
During the team event practice for Ice Dance, ROC's Sinitsina/Katsalapov and USA's Hubbell/Donohue had a near-dangerous brush. Peacock stuck it in the highlight reels and went on about how these things are nobody's fault but on rewatching it several times, it looks pretty clearly to me to have been team USA's fault.
First I want to mention that unlike the D/G & J/R situation above, neither team's music was playing so it wasn't automatically established who should have the right of way. SinKats were on approach skating backwards while Madi&Zach were approaching forwards. It's obvious from the way they watched the Russian team in the Peacock clip that they knew exactly where they were and didn't move. When Kats looks back and sees them, it's too late to pull the oblivious Sinitsina out of the way, resulting in a shoulder check and ass stroke from Zach. As they're skating apart, Kats gives them an angry look to which Madi smirks (I am not good at screencaps and could not capture it well but it's really evident in the clip up on Peacock.)
(S/K and H/D approaching, H/D's eyes locked on S/K and them doing nothing to move out of the way even though they have more control over their position at that moment.)
(Shoulder check then ass brush. It's pretty blatant when you watch the video and just makes me find Zach to be even more creepy than I already thought him.)
(Smirk, badly captured.)
Which brings me to my point - why are the North American teams Like This? Shoulder checks and disregarding basic right of way skating etiquette is just NOT a good look, especially for J/R who already have enough aspersions cast on their presence...