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 Figure skater Gracie Gold is in treatment for an eating disorder, depression and anxiety. She has withdrawn from her next two scheduled competitions in November. 
 
 “It saddens me deeply to sit out this Grand Prix Series, but I know it is for the best,” Gold said in a statement. “I am currently in treatment for depression, anxiety and an eating disorder. I will not have adequate training time to prepare and compete at the level that I want to. I would like to thank U.S. Figure Skating, my fans and my sponsors for their ongoing support. I also want to thank [coaches] Marina [Zoueva] and Oleg [Epstein] for standing beside me through this journey and most of all my family for their unconditional love.” 
 
 Gold, a Sochi Olympic team bronze medalist and two-time U.S. champion, will not compete at Cup of China or Internationaux de France, her two Grand Prix assignments in November. 
 
 She has no scheduled international competitions at the moment. The PyeongChang Olympic team will be chosen after the U.S. Championships in January. 
 
 On Sept. 1, Gold announced she was taking time away from figure skating to seek unspecified professional help. 
 
 Gold, the top American woman at the Sochi Olympics in fourth place, has not been the same skater since dropping from first after the 2016 World Championships short program to finish fourth, again just missing her first individual global medal. 
 
 She considered skipping the fall 2016 Grand Prix season, talking openly about physical struggles and even depression in that offseason. 
 
 The 22-year-old last competed at the U.S. Championships in January, placing a disastrous sixth. 
 
 She split from coach Frank Carroll at nationals. Gold then announced in February that she moved to Michigan to train under new coaches Zoueva and Epstein. 
 
 Then on Sept. 1, Gold announced she was taking a leave. She withdrew from her first event of the season, the Japan Open on Oct. 7. 
 
 “My passion for skating and training remains strong,” Gold said in the reported Sept. 1 statement. “However, after recent struggles on and off the ice, I realize I need to seek some professional help and will be taking some time off while preparing for my Grand Prix assignments. This time will help me become a stronger person, which I believe will be reflected in my skating performances as well.” 
 
 If and when Gold returns this season, she will be behind in the race for three Olympic spots. They will be earned based not only on nationals but also recent domestic and international events. 
 
 The favorites are 2014 Olympian Ashley Wagner, 2010 Olympian Mirai Nagasu and reigning U.S. champion Karen Chen. 
 
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 MORE: Wagner details dropping ‘La La Land’ free skate ||||| CLOSE Olympic medalist Gracie Gold confirmed to People that she will be taking a break from figure skating to “seek some professional help.” Time 
 
 Gracie Gold of the USA performs in the short program during the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games at Iceberg Skating Palace on Feb. 19. (Photo: Robert Deutsch-USA TODAY Sports) 
 
 Gracie Gold, a two-time U.S. figure skating champion and 2014 Olympic team bronze medalist whose last name and movie star looks have captivated her sport, said Friday morning in a statement released to USA TODAY Sports that she will be taking time off five months before the next Winter Olympics "to seek some professional help.” 
 
 She did not say what kind of professional help she will be receiving. 
 
 “My passion for skating and training remains strong,” Gold said in the statement. “However, after recent struggles on and off the ice, I realize I need to seek some professional help and will be taking some time off while preparing for my Grand Prix assignments. This time will help me become a stronger person, which I believe will be reflected in my skating performances as well.” 
 
 Gold was scheduled to open her 2018 Olympic season at the Japan Open, an invitational team competition in Saitama, Japan, on Oct. 7, but she now will not attend that event. Her Grand Prix assignments, in Beijing and Grenoble, France, are both scheduled in November. 
 
 The 2018 U.S. Olympic figure skating trials are in early January, now just four months away. The 2018 Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, start Feb. 9. At no time in recent memory has a skater voluntarily taken time away from her sport at such a crucial moment. There are three women’s spots available on the 2018 U.S. Olympic figure skating team. 
 
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 Gold, 22, has found herself on a precipitous and alarming 17-month-long slide since performing poorly in the long program at the 2016 world championships in Boston, falling from first place to fourth. Her decline culminated this spring and summer in a disheartening inability to land even the simplest jumps in skating shows and a U.S. Figure Skating preview camp. 
 
 Gold’s announcement comes just four days after Russian 2014 Olympic team gold medalist Julia Lipnitskaia announced her retirement at 19 after a battle with anorexia. Lipnitskaia’s mother, Daniela, told the Russian news agency Tass on Monday that her daughter was retiring after three months of treatment for the eating disorder. 
 
 Sometimes you have to get knocked down lower than you have ever been, to stand up taller than you ever were 👊🏼 Feb 1st is National #GetUp day. Let's go @usfigureskating A post shared by Gracie Gold (@graciegold95) on Feb 1, 2017 at 10:18pm PST 
 
 Gold herself has struggled with her weight. After a disappointing fifth-place finish at Skate America last October, she spoke boldly and admirably about the pressure she felt. 
 
 “You don’t often see – there aren’t that many – you just don’t see overweight figure skaters for a reason,” she said. “It’s just something I’ve struggled with this whole year and in previous seasons. It’s just difficult when you’re trying to do the difficult triple jumps. It’s something that I am addressing but it’s obviously not where it should be for this caliber of competition.” 
 
 A journalist picked up immediately on her use of the word “overweight,” saying correctly and appropriately that Gold looked slim. 
 
 “Oh, that’s lovely, thank you,” she replied. “It’s just not what’s required for this sport. It’s a lean body sport and it’s just not what I have currently, but, thank you.” 
 
 Upheaval and uncertainty have followed her since. She could never regain her footing on the ice, finishing a dismal sixth at the 2017 national championships in January just a year after winning her second U.S. title. She missed the world championships for the first time in five years. 
 
 Gracie Gold has won two U.S. national figure skating titles. Here she's shown competing Oct. 21, 2016, at Sears Center Arena. (Photo: Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Spor) 
 
 “When she was skating well, she was magical,” long-time U.S. Olympic coach Frank Carroll, who coached Gold for four seasons before an abrupt split at the end of the 2017 national championships, said in a phone interview earlier this week. 
 
 “You said to yourself, ‘Oh my God, she’s gorgeous. She looks like a movie star. She has such joie de vivre.’ Then you ask yourself what happened to that. I hope she can find happiness.” 
 
 Gold is one of the most financially successful figure skaters of her era, with various sponsors including Red Bull, Smucker’s and Nike. 
 
 After leaving Carroll’s training site in Los Angeles, she moved to Detroit to train with coaches Marina Zoueva and Oleg Epstein in suburban Canton, Mich. 
 
 In addition to Gold's personal struggles, her father Carl, a Springfield, Ill., anesthesiologist, has been dealing with unwelcome attention. His medical license was suspended in February, according to the State Journal-Register in Springfield. The suspension, which prevents Carl Gold from practicing medicine for at least a year, was triggered by what state officials said was a violation of a June 2016 consent order that said the state was informed by the U.S. Department of Justice that Carl Gold “diverted Schedule II Controlled Substances” from a Decatur, Ill., hospital “for personal use.” ||||| Two-time United States figure skating champion Gracie Gold has withdrawn from her scheduled Grand Prix Series events next month, citing ongoing treatment for "depression, anxiety and an eating disorder.'' 
 
 "It saddens me deeply to sit out this Grand Prix Series, but I know it is for the best,'' Gold said in a statement released to the media late Friday afternoon. "I will not have adequate training time to prepare and compete at the level that I want to. 
 
 "I would like to thank U.S. Figure Skating, my fans and my sponsors for their ongoing support. I also want to thank [coaches] Marina [Zoueva] and Oleg [Epstein] for standing beside me through this journey and most of all my family for their unconditional love." 
 
 Gracie Gold has previously said she has been dealing with weight and body image struggles. AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh 
 
 The announcement by Gold, 22, makes it unlikely she would be able to bid for a spot on the U.S. team for the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Grand Prix results, along with results at world and national championships, are an important factor in team selection. 
 
 Gold finished fourth in individual competition at Sochi 2014 and helped the U.S. win a bronze medal in co-ed team competition. 
 
 Gold first announced she was taking a break from the sport in September, when she pulled out of a lead-up event in Japan. She said at that time she was seeking professional help for unspecified reasons, hoping it would help her "become a stronger person.'' 
 
 The Springfield, Illinois, native had been slated to compete in the Cup of China and the Internationaux de France in November. U.S. Olympic team selections -- including three slots for individual women -- will be announced after the national championships in early January. 
 
 Gold won nationals in 2014 and 2016, but her form and confidence sagged visibly after placing fourth at the spring 2016 world championships in Boston, where she had led after the short program. Last season, she made a public reference to weight and body image struggles, split with her coach Frank Carroll after finishing sixth at nationals, and subsequently moved to the Detroit area to work with Zoueva and Epstein. 
 
 Ashley Wagner, the three-time U.S. champion whose rivalry with Gold has warmed into a friendship over the last year, praised Gold for her decision last month at the U.S. Olympic media summit. 
 
 "Taking a step back and actually taking time to focus on herself - as an athlete, that is one of the hardest decisions to make,'' Wagner told reporters. "It really is just a statement to how strong that girl is. People don't give her enough credit for that. 
 
 "She was talking to [fellow skater] Adam (Rippon) and I before she decided to take a step back. It was a really good conversation, her head was in the place where she wanted to feel better. It's beyond her being an athlete at this point, it's about how she is as a person. The fact that she's able to acknowledge that she needs to get back to a level sense of self takes a lot of guts.''
– Popular figure skater Gracie Gold is taking time off from her sport "to seek some professional help," she announced in a statement Friday. Gold is a two-time US figure skating champion, was a member of the 2014 US Olympic team that won the bronze medal, and is an expected member of the 2018 US Olympic team, per the Washington Post. But she has been on what USA Today calls "a precipitous and alarming 17-month-long slide" since she fell from first place to fourth at the 2016 world championships; she continued to flail at competitions, and in appearances this spring and summer, she found it difficult to land simple jumps. She ultimately finished sixth at the 2017 national championships, missing this year's world championships. Her statement does not specify what sort of help she's seeking but only mentions "recent struggles on and off the ice." The 22-year-old has spoken in the past about her struggles with her weight, saying last October that she didn't currently have the "lean body" required for her sport. Longtime US Olympic coach Frank Carroll coached Gold for four seasons, but the two "abruptly" split after the 2017 national championships; he tells USA Today he wonders "what happened" to Gold's "joie de vivre" and hopes she "can find happiness." Her announcement comes four months before the 2018 US Olympic figure skating trials; Gold will skip the Japan Open on Oct. 7 but said in her statement she plans to be back in time for her Grand Prix assignments in China and France in November.