I think that coaching in and of itself is such a complicated job and topic. And not only when it comes to professional sports. I'm sure that almost any person who has done anything competitive and/or performance-related (singing, dancing, choir, theatre, band/orchestra, etc.) where a mentor of some sorts is involved can remember at least one moment where in the heat of the moment something humiliating was said. Or they can remember many such moments. I imagine that for coaches/mentors, it can be very difficult to strike the balance between being perfectly nice regardless of the circumstances and pushing students to achieve big results. Some pupils are motivated in and of themselves. Others can be perceived as lazier and thus coaches think that shame of anger may motivate them - and if they see the results improving, they continue employing such tactics (not saying it's a good thing at all - it's just how I imagine some coaches may see it).
With anything competitive, the training environment is going to be heated. If something less than nice slips out once or twice - it's still a bad thing, but may be understandable. If it's a constantly employed tactic - that's just plain abuse. And it is going to leave damage. And the pupils will either realise somewhere along the way (maybe many years down the line) that they are/were victims, or they are going to try and ignore it and say that "this is just how things are", without knowing that there can be different approaches to training. Ekaterina is probably somewhere down the middle here - she can tell that it's not right, but still can't quite depart from the "this is how things are" phase.
I don't know what the true situation with Eteri is. But with Katia mentioning Zhuk, I do recall seeing some sort of interview where either Rodnina or Vodorezova was talking about strict he was and how unpleasant the training environment could be for them. If I recall correctly, he did have a reputation for, em, having a drinking problem, so I can imagine that he could hurl abuse without restraint in such circumstances. Rodnina is a lady with quite the character herself, so I recall hearing that they would often butt heads. Don't know exactly what his training methods were, but I gather that the environment wasn't nice. Either way, I do hope that the situation has improved and will continue to improve. I also very much hope that students can stand up for themselves, but I do understand that, at such an elite level, there are limited options of where to train, and so the risk of leaving/being thrown out can be scarier that these unpleasant circumstances (and so they stay)
I also don't think that this is strictly a Russia problem (thinking that is very naïve), but that it IS a very big problem over there, especially with it being so out in the open and with pupils almost having a sense of pride that they lived through that and got good results. That sort of mentality needs to change for sure.
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Are you shading her?
