𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐒: 𝐑𝐄𝐕𝐈𝐕𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐎𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐀𝐒𝐓 𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐊 | 𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐬

[ 005 ]

⚠️trigger warning: sexual abuse⚠️

'The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same.'
- Collin R. Davis

Sunday, March 27, 2022 was now here. The World Championships were less than twenty-four hours away and she couldn't be more nervous. Although the first real competition was on Wednesday at eleven o'clock, tomorrow they were allowed to step on the ice on the rink for the first time and start practicing according to a set schedule. She had spent the last week in Monaco training hard before arriving on Saturday. She had moved into a hotel room, which was her home for the next seven days.

The hype surrounding the World Championships was already huge. A lot of press agents, a lot of fans and a lot of other skaters were running around the hotel where they were all hosted. And it all reminded her of the Winter Olympics, where she had failed miserably. Where things had happened that shouldn't have happened. All of it threw up wounds that she had spent the last few weeks burying. And now here she was, not knowing how she was going to make it through this competition. It sounded impossible to step onto the ice with a smile on her face, it seemed impossible to skate a clean free skate and then maybe pick up a medal. Which is why she wondered why she should compete at all. She would be safer if she stayed at the hotel and declared herself sick and therefore unable to compete. That wouldn't be her, though. She was strong and didn't want to do him that favor. And besides, how should she tell her brothers and her mom?

Only her mom was here with her, since her brothers were still in Saudi Arabia for a race, but tomorrow afternoon they would also come to Montpellier to support her as they had done in Beijing. Even though she was happy and glad to have this support, at the same time it put her under a lot of pressure. She didn't want to bring another disappointment on herself and her family after the disappointment at the Winter Olympics.

She had just come from a fancy restaurant in Montpellier where Luise and her mom had dined. It had been a nice setting with a nice atmosphere that had distracted her from the upcoming World Championships. But now she was sitting alone in her hotel room and had vowed to go to the hotel gym again before they went to dinner, but now that she had eaten, all she wanted to do was shower and go to bed. She needed her rest and that was convenient for her today, since her mother had her own room one floor below, her brothers were not there, who would certainly not let her run free starting tomorrow, and the press officers, who would run her over tomorrow, had already finished work today.

So she decided to take a quick shower and then turn on the TV and watch some soap. She and her mom had already called her brothers while sitting at the restaurant table, congratulating Charles on coming in second. Who now wanted to go celebrate with a few other drivers. So her duties had been done and the most important thing now was the mental preparation for the next week.

***

The morning started very early for her. At half past three in the morning she had to get up, get ready and was then taken by a driver to the rink at four in the morning. She then had two hours to warm up off ice and then put on her skates, which took a good half hour. Then she was allowed to step onto the ice at six o'clock, exactly on the minute. She was just able to keep her eyes open as she skated her first laps, checking to see if her shoes were laced tightly enough.

Why did she have to be in the first group to practice on the ice, though? She could just as easily have gone on the ice around six o'clock in the evening. But that's when the Americans were allowed to practice. But that was the system. On Monday and Tuesday, each skater was allowed to practice on the ice for two hours. And since not all skaters could be on the ice at the same time, they were randomly divided into different times. There were another four skaters in her group. Among them was her Monegasque teammate Davide Lewton Brain, who was competing in the men's singles. They were joined by another two men, Adam Siao Him Fa and Kévin Aymoz, and one woman, Léa Serna, from the French national team. However, since the Monegasque national team was not that big, they had a lot to do with the French team. They often traveled together to competitions and slept in the same hotel. They were considered a national team to some extent. Often Davide, she and others also went to France for training camps or generally trained in France. There were even several competitions where the French and Monegasque skaters competed and yet it was not considered an international competition. Thus, they all knew each other very well and were in the clear if they had been titled as one team.