Before the short dance event at the 2014 Winter Olympics, Katarina Shaw bursts out of the backstage dressing room. She’s holding her skates, and she looks livid.
Other skaters, including fellow team USA ice dancer Francesca Gaskell, rush over to see what’s the matter. Katarina ignores them, frantically glancing around—until she spots Heath Rocha, sitting on a bench several yards away, about to step into his own skates.
“STOP!” Katarina shouts.
Ellis Dean:I was backstage doing interviews, minding my own damn business. Then all hell breaks loose. Luckily my camera was already rolling.
Heath looks up, confused. Katarina hurries past—leaving a trail of bloody footprints.
Veronika Volkova:She seemed to have a little cut on her foot. That is all.
Ellis Dean:Kat was bleeding everywhere. It was like a murder scene.
Francesca Gaskell:I just tried to stay out of the way. You know what she could be like.(She shakes her head.)Thattemper.
Veronika Volkova stands nearby, talking with Yelena Volkova and Dmitri Kipriyanov. Katarina stalks up to them and turns her skates upside down. Several small objects tumble out.
Ellis Dean:There werethornsin her skates.
Katarina hurls accusations at the Russian coach and skaters. Only a few words are audible on the video—“flowers,” “blood,” and “sabotage.”
Veronika Volkova:I had no idea what she was going on about.
Ellis Dean:Not like little tiny ones either. Big jagged motherfuckers.
Heath checks his own skates. Sure enough, when he turns them over, more thorns fall out.
Ellis Dean:First GlitterGate, now this. Her foot was all ripped up, and if she hadn’t warned Heath in time, his would’ve been too.
The camera moves in closer as Katarina continues her tirade. Yelena shrinks away, while Veronika stands her ground, seeming vaguely amused by the situation. Dmitri stands off to the side, looking dumbfounded—until Heath comes to stand by Katarina’s side.
“This is low,” Heath says. “Even for you.”
Dmitri gets in Heath’s face, growling something in Russian. Katarina moves between them, but not to keep the peace. She shoves Dmitri so hard he stumbles back, hitting the cement floor.
Veronika Volkova:She should have been disqualified, then and there. But the Americans allow their athletes to get away with anything.
Ellis Dean:For once, Kat and Heath had every right to throw a fit. Someone had sabotaged them. And let’s be real: we all knew who the most likely culprits were.
Medics arrive to look at Katarina’s cuts—and now Dmitri’s bruised tailbone too.
Heath takes some first aid supplies, but waves off the medics so he can tend to Katarina’s foot himself. As he kneels in front of her, dabbing disinfectant on the gouges left by the thorns, Katarina continues to glare daggers at the Russians.
Ellis Dean:One thing’s for sure: when they took the ice, they were out for blood.
Chapter 75
I survived the short dance on adrenaline, spite, and a dry-swallowed dose of ibuprofen.
By the end of the night, we were in first place, a full two points ahead of the Russians, and my foot was so swollen I could barely get it out of my boot. Heath offered me some of his prescription painkillers to take the edge off, then realized he’d left the bottle back at our hotel—which we couldn’t return to until we sat through a barrage of questions from event officials about the “incident,” as they insisted on calling it.
Why hadn’t I checked my skate before putting it on? Why didn’t we report the bloody flowers right away, if they disturbed us so much? Had our bags been unattended at any point? Where? For how long?
As if it was somehow our fault. As if we didn’t know better than to leave our skates lying around in a place swarming with professional rivals.
Between practice and the short dance, our equipment hadn’t been out of our sight—with the exception of a ten-minute span where I’d taken a shower and Heath had gone to get us some food. He was adamant that he’d locked the door behind him. Which meant whoever did this had access to our room, or they’d bribed the hotel staff. The Kipriyanov family’s mob connections would’ve made that easy. Actually proving the Russian team was behind the sabotage would be much harder.
The officials pulled sympathetic faces and swore to conduct a “thorough investigation.” But the damage was done. The most importantcompetition of my career was less than twenty-four hours away, and my foot was full of puncture wounds.
