I disagree, fairly4. There have been cases in the past, where athletes kept their injuries secret before a competition, in order to avoid giving confidence to their rivals. Moreover, some of these injuries are anything but minor.
I remember reading recently that Evan Lysacek, for example, who had kept competing a while back with stress fracture in his pelvis, has developed bursitis. The piece that I read indicated that the former had caused the latter.
So many times, skaters skate through terrific pain, without mentioning it until much later, or ever. I believe there is much more hiding of pain than there is of faking it, in the sport. There is a big difference between a "reason" and an "excuse".
Never shall I be able to forget watching Elvis Stojko's face as he skated through unbearable pain at the Olympics. He was obviously trying to hide the pain, but I could tell from his face; I cried out, "why, he's in agony!", and was disbelieved by another who was also watching it on TV with me. It was awful. Elvis won silver, but it turned out that he had been skating through a groin injury, and doing that cost him dearly in his skating future. As he came off the ice that day, barely able to walk, anyone could see that he was in pain; but he had toughed it out while he was skating, to an incredible degree.
I remember how two skaters wisely took about three months off the ice to heal, in the middle of their competitive careers, and they came back in pretty good physical condition: Michelle Kwan, and Michael Weiss. Many skaters seem unwilling or unable to take that much time off in order to heal their injuries; perhaps the reason is timing. When one is in the very thick of the competitive season, it is hard to withdraw, after all the work that went into preparation.
When I read the report of what Galina had said, yesterday, I was dismayed. I know that Johnny will do his best, no matter what. Please do not insult the skaters; many times they are skating heroically through painful injuries that would have most people crying and wailing. This sport is one of the hardest on the body of the athletes, no matter how beautiful are the costumes. This has become an intense, grueling sport, that ages the body unnaturally. It is no longer about tracing figures on the ice with precision; it is about leaping through the air and landing as gracefully as possible, upon the edge of a blade. It is about the shock of landing on such a narrow surface, that the inelastic ice sends the force of that landing back into the athlete's body. Damage becomes inevitable. We should honor those with the courage to keep skating. I know of no sport that is more heroic.