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BEIJING – After her 20th birthday, Maria Bell wanted to make a difference in herself Number skating Industry. He graduated from high school a few years ago, so this time he felt ready to fully engage in his sport – and got more time. He invited Rafael Arutunyan, an elite coach based in California, who is ready to jump into a new training environment that will help him reach greater heights than he has ever achieved.

The only problem? Aruthunyan says he will not answer the phone.

“For no reason,” he thought. He did not think he could help much in that narrow window, as he felt that Bell would not be in his skating career for more than a few more years. But she called back, and then asked to meet him face-to-face while she was in town for a match – he likened her to a monk sitting in the wind and snow outside the chosen monastery.

“They can sit for months and months and months,” Arutunyan said. “They say:‘ No, we need to [to be] Here. We need this. We don’t want another one. ‘ It [how] She persuaded me to take her.

“I feel like I’m not going to get any answers,” Bell recalled, as he wholeheartedly believed he could make further progress in the game. After starting to work with Arutunyan, he won a bronze medal at the American Nationals the following year and was a member of the World Championship team for the first time. She was gradually approaching the pinnacle of women’s figure skating in the United States, but entering her ninth season as a senior skater, Bell had no national titles, no world championship medals or Olympic berths.

Then, finally, last month, she reached that peak, Won National Championships Want to get a place on this Olympic team. In doing so, she became the oldest American female figure skater in sports for nearly a century. Bell is not focused on his age, but he does not care if he’s a 25-year-old Olympian, because, he said, it allows him to believe that others can come here – even as teenagers, especially from Russia, who continue to dominate the medal stages.