Song of the Witches:
BY
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
(from Macbeth)
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and howlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.
Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good
There are no state sponsored skating schools in US, but the popular sports are trained and competed through the state-funded public school system. Schools are limited to the athletes who live within the district of their jurisdiction, but controversy erupts whenever records are falsified to enable the "poaching" of talent from outside the district. Additionally, while the athletes must maintain amateur status, expensive private schools stir the pot by providing very expensive scholarship opportunities to "lure" athletes away from their home district in order to burnish the reputation of the school by assembling powerhouse teams of athletes.
Olympic ideals of pure sport are simply that, ideals, as rare as a human being who has never once transgressed their own principles, avowed or ordained. The fire beneath the cauldron is almost always power; and the witches who stir it are money, fame and influence. (Though one could find humor in casting the three witches with Eteri and her sisters: just kidding, calm down.)
It is plain that the stormy weather snatching at umbrellas, scattering the patio furniture and breaking limbs from great trees throughout Russian Figure skating is, for this season at least, centered around the Ladies discipline, because the accomplishments of these ladies and the attention that they command is the powerhouse of the entire sport.
I find the caldron to be a particularly apt metaphor as it frames the question this way: If the fire is power; desires are the witches; the ingredients are the skating elements and the packaging; and the incantation summons a spell which will place an athlete(s) atop the podium; then, what is the caldron itself?
Is it too obvious? But it must be the National Federation. Some feds may be better or worse, but RusFed cannot be considered unique here, as USFSA, and many other national feds are frequently cited as more often troublesome than wholesome. Is it the first duty of a governing body to promote the general welfare? Perhaps, but we are not so naive as to overlook that the first step is always to consolidate and maintain the position of power.
The target of Rudkovskaya's ambition is not Eteri Georgievna, it is a battle with Gorshkov, in a war against Lakernik. RusFed recognizes that the battle between the established system and the upstart private business at Angels of Plyushenko has put at stake control of all of figure skating.
These IG flares, and media bombs are minor splashes over the rim of the caldron. Just wait until the caldron itself is overturned!
