Chapter 110 - The Verdict of the Ice

​The scent of local anesthetic and antiseptic alcohol permeated the air of the Tokyo delegation's medical cabin in the Bercy locker rooms. Barely forty minutes remained before the final group of skaters would hit the ice for the free program. Aibek Kenes sat on the examination table, his eyes closed and his fists clenched against the canvas mattress, while the official physician administered the analgesic infiltration directly into the inflamed tissues of his left ankle. The sting was sharp—a chemical cold that rapidly spread through the joint, numbing the throbbing pain from the previous day's fall, but leaving an artificial sensation of lightness in his foot that the brunette would have to learn to calibrate on his titanium blades.