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.” ||||| U.S. figure skating champion and Olympic medalist Gracie Gold is withdrawing from her scheduled competitions in the Grand Prix of Figure Skating next month while she is being treated for anxiety, depression and an eating disorder. 
 
 “It saddens me deeply to sit out this Grand Prix Series, but I know it is for the best,” she said in a statement to PEOPLE on Friday afternoon, adding, “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,” her statement continued. “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.” 
 
 Last month, Gold — who earned a bronze medal on the U.S. figure skating team at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia — announced she would be “taking some time off” from her sport to “seek some professional help.” 
 
 “My passion for skating and training remains strong,” Gold said at the time. “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,” she continued, “which I believe will be reflected in my skating performances as well.” 
 
 She did not specify then what the nature of her struggles were. Her decision came after she was already promoting the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. 
 
 Gracie Gold Harry How/Getty 
 
 Gracie Gold (center) 
 
 The 22-year-old said in September that she would no longer compete in the Japan Open in October, as scheduled, but would appear in two Grand Prix events in November. 
 
 On Friday, she announced she would not appear at those either. 
 
 It was not immediately clear if she planned to compete for a spot on Team USA at the Winter Olympics in February. There are three spots open on the U.S. figure skating team for the women’s event there. 
 
 Those competitors will be chosen only a few weeks before the Games get underway, after the 2018 U.S. Figure Skating Championships end in January: A committee will select the athletes based on their performances from the 2017 World Figure Skating Championships through the U.S. championships. 
 
 “U.S. Figure Skating is in full support of Gracie,” a spokeswoman for the sport previously told PEOPLE, “and we would ask all to respect her privacy at this time.” 
 
 Despite two U.S. figure skating championships and her medal-winning Olympic performance, Gold finished sixth at the 2017 national championships in January, only a year after winning her second U.S. title. 
 
 “When she was skating well, she was magical,” former coach Frank Carroll told USA Today last month. 
 
 He said of Gold, “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.” 
 
 Gracie Gold 
 
 Last year, according to USA Today, Gold discussed the body weight pressures she’s faced — as other Olympic skaters have been public about their own challenges. 
 
 “You just don’t see overweight figure skaters for a reason,” Gold 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.” 
 
 Previously asked about returning for the Winter Games in 2018, Gold struck an optimistic tone, saying in 2014, “I definitely have two Olympics in me; I don’t know about three Olympics.” 
 
 Friend and fellow Olympic figure skater Ashley Wagner sounded support for Gold during a media summit for Team USA in Park City, Utah, in September. 
 
 “Taking a step back and actually taking time to focus on herself, as an athlete that’s one of the hardest decisions to make,” she said. “It really is just a statement to how strong that girl is, and people don’t give her enough credit for that.” 
 
 “To be able to take a step back during your Olympic season, that just goes to show how much she needed a change,” Wagner said of Gold. “Whenever anyone is ever willing to get help to fix their lives, that’s admirable and never something that should be questioned.” 
 
 • Reporting by JOHNNY DODD ||||| Gracie Gold is believed to be the first U.S. figure skater in recent memory to take time off so close to the Olympics. (Maddie Meyer/Getty Images) 
 
 If all goes as planned for Gracie Gold, she’ll be one of three female Team USA skaters to compete at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. The 22-year-old, however, who picked up a bronze medal at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia, appears to have an uphill battle to get there. 
 
 Citing “recent struggles on and off the ice,” Gold said in a statement (via USA Today) on Friday that she will take some time off “to seek some professional help.” 
 
 Gold did not elaborate on what exactly her struggles have been “off the ice,” but recent performances have revealed some of her on-ice issues. 
 
 The two-time national champion has found herself uncharacteristically missing out on the podium at the U.S. Championships last year. She finished in sixth place, which was just the start of her season-long rut. 
 
 “I just never felt so disappointed in myself,” the Missouri native said about the performance (via the Kansas City Star). 
 
 Gold would go on to compete in two Grand Prix events, where she continued to be unable to execute jumps that used to look simple to the star. The 2016 Trophee de France proved a low point for the skater. She finished in eighth place — her worst Grand Prix result ever. 
 
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 In her statement on Friday, Gold said her “passion for skating and training remains strong,” and that she had no intention of retiring. 
 
 She said the time she plans to take off as she prepares for her Grand Prix assignments in November “will help me become a stronger person, which I believe will be reflected in my skating performances as well.” 
 
 According to USA Today, Gold will now miss at least one scheduled event, the Japan Open on Oct. 7. 
 
 Gold, who has always been quick to give public emotional responses to her performances, came down particularly hard on herself last year as she struggled. She made her biggest headlines, however, when she addressed the topic of weight after her poor Skate America performance in October. 
 
 “You don’t often see — there aren’t that many — you just don’t see overweight figure skaters for a reason,” Gold said (via USA Today) just minutes after exiting the ice. “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.” 
 
 Gold, of course, is not “overweight” by usual standards, which one reporter pointed out to her. Gold thanked the journalist, but added, “It’s a lean body sport and it’s just not what I have currently.” 
 
 Former U.S. figure skater and Olympic gold medalist Tara Lipinski seconded Gold’s concerns, noting weight is something “every skater’s thinking about.” 
 
 “I think you don’t [see skaters] talk about it because in reality saying you need to lose weight when you’re already thin is a bit crazy,” Lipinski added (via NBC Sports), noting figure skating isn’t unlike gymnastics or ballet where “there is always this pressure to be very thin, not only for aesthetics, but just for your actual sport and how you use your body.” 
 
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 If expectations are not properly managed, there can be dire consequences for skaters. Russian Olympic champion Yulia Lipnitskaya announced her retirement in a statement to the Russia’s TASS news agency earlier this week, citing a struggle with anorexia. The 19-year-old, who won gold at the 2014 Olympics when she was just 15, recently completed a three-month treatment program to address her eating disorder. 
 
 Former U.S. figure skater Jenny Kirk, who also suffered from the disorder, told the HuffPost in 2010 that she suspects up to 85 percent of top skaters suffer from “various forms of disordered eating.” 
 
 Kirk, a former world junior champion, puts part of the blame on coaches and fans, but most on the skating system itself, which updated its scoring agenda to reward technical moves, jumps and spins, that she said are “a lot harder … when one’s body is more womanly.” 
 
 “Until this system is tweaked, I don’t see a change in the number of injuries and the pressure for skaters to stay an unusually small size.” 
 
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– 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.