Nearly 44 grueling training sessions each week. That’s more than 38 hours of practice followed by school on weekends. That’s just how much hard work is required to reach the level of one Olympic figure skater. But this is just a portion of what she has given for excellence in every jump and twirl. After all, you need more than just physical training for glory on ice. For the silver medalist, it included dietary practices and refraining from eating after 6 PM. But none of this comes close to the biggest obstacle she faced in her passion. But why was that?

Well, for Evgenia Medvedeva, it all came to a fever pitch during the period from 2016 to 2018. But why? Well, she lived with her grandmother and her mother. Now her mother wasn’t much of a problem since she would rarely eat, and the woman’s diet included no breakfast, lunch at work, and salad for dinner. The challenges came from her grandmother since cooking and groceries were her department, and as told by the figure skater in the interview with FS Gossip, “she never paid attention to what she ate, enjoying tea and sandwiches in the evening. We always had sausage, cookies, cream-filled pastries, and sugary treats around.”

The Olympian recalls having fights with her grandmother over this thing. She would, at times, look for something light, like a simple salad or a piece of meat to eat, and what she found was sausage, frozen dumplings, and sugary snacks. She said, “I’d yell, ‘Grandma! How many times do I have to ask?! I tried explaining that we were a team —that as my family, they should support me. I begged them to stick to a diet with me. But no matter what I said, sausage was always there, and I’d end up eating it at night.”

The Olympian then went on to talk about how, coming from a family that has no tradition of healthy eating or balanced, sports-focused nutrition, keeping such a diet becomes extremely hard. Pondering upon the thought of whether the 2016-2018 stay-at-home Olympic preparation with sausages influenced her, she said, “Absolutely. I often wanted to eat something healthy, but all there was in the fridge was sausage and bread.” 

While thinking of the strict practices she put herself through, a question looms of the fruit of it. Makes you even more curious when you realize that she doesn’t want her kids to follow the sport. How did she do in her career with such rigorous physical training and dietary practices, where she did not even drink water at times?

Evgenia Medvedeva’s figure skating career

​Evgenia Medvedeva began her figure skating journey at the age of 3 in Moscow, at the stadium “Young Pioneers,” then in CSKA in the group of the honored coach of Russia, Lyubov Yakovleva. At eight, she joined Eteri Tutberidze’s group, and four years later, she was in the Russian National Team. At the 2015 World Junior Championships in Tallinn, Estonia, she clinched the gold medal with a total score of 192.97 points.

Earlier in the season, Medvedeva demonstrated her dominance by winning both of her Junior Grand Prix assignments, including the event in Courchevel, France, where she achieved a total score of 179.55 points.  She continued her winning streak at the 2014–15 Junior Grand Prix Final in Barcelona, securing the title with a combined score of 190.89 points.

Transitioning to the senior level in the 2015–16 season, Medvedeva achieved immediate success, securing her first World Championship title in 2016 and repeating the feat in 2017. Then came the 2018 Olympics, where she won the Silver medal, narrowly missing the top spot to Alina Zagitova.  Evgenia has since retired from the sport due to a career-threatening injury at the age of 21, back in 2021.

But while she might not be competing anymore, she is still involved with the sport that gave her so much.