I did not say it directly that the words were said but, yes, I implied it having forgotten that Evgenija refuted them. My bad.
As for the first part, I did not get it. She said nothing about body or mind. She said that she had either to retire or to go to Canada. It means that she did not consider to go on with Eteri or any other Russian coach. The rationale for that I don't understand. The easiest explanation is that Eteri lost interest in her. I don't believe it - why would she, she said that she waited for her to start training? Then why? She did not trust Eteri any longer? - that's the last thing we have been discussing. I still don't understand what exactly was the reason of this lost trust.
She said the decision for her was between "retire" or "make a drastic change and go to Canada". Why? There are probably many reasons for that. Do we have to know them all? Is it our right as fans? I don't think so. Zhenya is her own person and she can make her own decisions and sure as hell doesn't need to tell us the exact rationals of thinking she went through before coming to this decision. She already opens up more about her feelings than many other athletes and see where that lands her. People picking apart her every word, trying to look for something she said against Eteri. Nah. She didn't say anything about Eteri. She said something about herself. This is what matters and it makes me sad that some consider this so unimportant that they try to look for something about Eteri. Sometimes people just feel unhappy in a place and they don't have some absolutely logical and convincing arguments for how they feel. Most aren't scrutinized by media and fans like these athletes are, though, so they don't notice.
Your rationale is very confusing to me as well, I have to say. It is her saying her only choice was to retire or make a change and you immediately jump to the conclusion that she said Eteri must have given up on her. Why? Just because she wanted to change coaches. This doesn't make sense. I'll ask again:
Do you think athletes can (and do) only change their coaches if the coach has given up on them before? If not, then I do not understand why you can't see that maybe Zhenya's reasons were different as well.
You also said in another post that changing to Orser didn't "change anything at all" because there is the 3 max quota per country. And I actually think that this is the problem. This was not what Zhenya was talking about when she said "choices". She meant in an emotional way, not a physical way that she literally couldn't do anything else or that she thought going to Orser would magically get her on the team again. When she said "there were only two options", she meant it for herself and nobody else. I think this is what you fail to understand. That sometimes, people make changes and decisions for purely emotional reasons because of how they feel and what they want and not what they think they will get in a material sense. Sometimes it is about thinking longterm and looking at what you want from life in general. And not "how will I get onto the team again?". Even if that certainly played a role as well. You have a bit of a limited point of view, imo. Humans are complex lol. You can't just generalize them like that and try to fit their decisions into boxes.
I have my own speculations as for why she left and they're way different than yours. I think she wanted a more individual approach to training, wanted a change after what was a traumatic experience during the Olympic season and just couldn't stand starting to work and live again like nothing had happened. To me it seems that the OG were a turning point in her life, there was no "going back". That's why it ended up being "retire or make the change drastic". Maybe Eteri played a role here, maybe not. I guess she did in some way or another. But again, what you perceive as "Eteri must have lost interest", I perceive as: "Zhenya saw the amount of girls in Eteri's group and realised that after the OG, she needed something different and wanted to work differently." Is my interpretation more "correct" than yours? No. It's just an interpretation. But I daresay it's at least a bit more similar to what Zhenya herself has said so far.
In the end we do not know her rationale beyond what she has decided to tell us.. We do not need to know more either. Zhenya made her decision and I'm sure she made it carefully and it lead her to where she is now. For better or worse, that's what she has to decide. She seems very happy so that's enough for me.
I'm editing this now to add that this will by my last post on the matter. The reason for this whole discussion was my post stating that I did not see any reason for negativity towards a young woman winning medals for her country and doing so proudly. That the immediate reaction to that was "No but you see there IS negativity and there has to be negativity and I will tell you why: See, she LEFT Eteri and did not provide a list containing her entire process of thinking before coming to this strange decision! How could she?!" tells me more than I need to know. And I think I shall leave it at that.
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