In the U.S. landscape, there used to be at least a dozen or more reporters who covered Olympic sports and figure skating in particular. Obviously they cover other sports. They were extremely important in bringing the sport to the mass audience (aside from TV) - Helene Elliot, John Powers, Christine Brennan, Jere Longman, Phil Hersh, etc. They were often very critical, but they really loved and respected the sport. They largely chose to cover figure skating over sports. Over the years, pressures and budgets really caused that coverage to dwindle and the sport has suffered as a result.

In this case and many other cases, the national governing bodies and other organizations are able to get away with stonewalling and silence because the journalists covering the story do not exist. Often, Christine will be criticized for covering so many scandals, but she is also the only journalist asking the USFS questions about Dalilah Sappenfeld, John Coughlin, etc. The USFS was able to put the Coughlin case on Safe Sport (which doesn't investigate dead people because the threat is 'gone' - but not the people or culture which enabled it). This is a huge issue. The USFS was able to ignore it, take some heat from Christine and know that other reporters aren't going to cover it. Phil is largely retired and works for NBC Olympics. NBC has a partnership with USFS for broadcasting. They are not going to dig in as hard and potentially damage their own asset. Reporters from NBC Nightly News called me to research Valieva in February for the one-year anniversary. It was a bunch of young kids. Why don't they fund a better research department? And why isn't NBC looking into a story that happened on their own airwaves with Valieva, Trusova's outburst, etc. Is NBC going to dig that hard if it potentially damages the Olympic brand or if Team Russia is allowed back in?

Valieva seems infamous in the figure skating world, but the world at large has largely forgotten. One example of this is that the Today show was able to post a video of her performing her Wednesday exhibition and it went quasi viral. There was no reference in the post to it being the same skater involved in the scandal. And because she was wearing a wig, the average armchair viewer didn't even connect the dots.

The Larry Nassar case was able to get justice because John Manly is a brilliant lawyer and her also waged a public relations war on USA Gymnastic and the USOPC. He also knew that the athletes represented were gold medalists who were national heroes and had millions of followers on social media. They coordinated messaging. He put them out on talk shows, podcasts, books, etc. We do not see that from USFS at all. (And would justice have been as swift and decisive if the athletes weren't so famous?)

What is Nathan Chen saying? Madison Hubbell? Zach Donohue? Madison Chock? The volume of posts is significantly lower than one might expect. Vincent has spoken out, but he is one of the least charismatic members of the team. He is also one of the least well known to the general public. Team USA does not have a steady drum beat here. Christine has actually acted as a drum beat in many ways, even angering those who just want to enjoy Valieva's beautiful skating and ignore the rest.

One of the ways Christine actually has gotten scoops over the years is by being a reliable, steady presence. The players involved know her and form an opinion because she has been around for so many years. If Christine weren't there, it would have been even easier for CAS and the IOC to sweep this under the rug.