She didn't even make it out of juniors due to the new rules that were supposed to lengthen careers not have 17 year olds quitting due to the physical and mental toll
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Would it have been any better if she had one or two Senior seasons and then quit? And the competition in Seniors would have been no easier, I don't even know if she would have gotten the GP host spot in 2023/24 or 2024/25, considering who else would have been Sr eligible under the old age rules.
USFS needs to do better, Glenn has her ongoing mental health struggles, Liu abruptly quit at 16, Tennell quit at 15 due to the mental toll of the sport.
USFS needs to do better, sure, but so does every single federation, even more, humanity has to do better. Emotional abuse is widespread and not taken seriously enough. Amber's mental health struggles come from a different place and are being treated by professionals (and she also never gave up). Alysa took time off to fall in love with the sport again, which is a very healthy, mature and good decision to be able to make (instead of trying to force yourself to keep going like Yulia, for example). And Bradie never quit, she won bronze at Novice Nationals at 15, and pewter at Jr Nationals at 16, and is still competing at 27.
There aren't that many skaters compared to Russia, Japan, China, but so many high profile skaters burn out quickly or suffer with mental illness.
Do more skaters suffer, or are they just more vocal about their suffering and have less incentive/pressure to keep going if they can't anymore? There are also tons of skaters in Russia, Japan, China who "fell off" and were never heard of again, but isn't it possible that a) people have a harder time following Chinese, Japanese and Chinese domestic skating (language barrier), b) if there are more skaters, more skaters can quit without being noticeable and c) skaters in those countries often quit at an even younger age where they couldn't even be well-known internationally yet (like Daria Sarymsakova or Sofia Dzepka before they came back)?
Poor Kalin tried hard to push the sport forward with her quad, but I always read so much negativity about her doing so. The e-bullying of her (I'm thinking of a social media platform beginning with r and ending in t that e-bullied her constantly) could have only contributed to the pain she felt
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Except that Mia talked about emotional abuse by someone who was supposed to be a trusted adult, not about anything else. Isn't it also weird how Mia stopped jumping quads at the same time she said she was able to leave this abusive situation? Makes you wonder if it was actually her desire to push herself that hard, or if she was, as she wrote, "giving too much of [her]self away because [she was] made to believe that was the only way to succeed".
That would probably have just cost her more money than juniors.
