“That’s why you keep going”
Valiyeva is back on the ice after the scandal
03/28/2022, 10:35 am
The Russian figure skater Kamila Valiewa caused the biggest doping scandal at the Beijing Winter Olympics, her trainer produced pictures that even made the IOC boss shudder. Now the 15-year-old is leaving the excitement behind, at least in terms of sport. However, nothing has been clarified yet.
Five weeks after her dramatic crash at the Beijing Winter Games, 15-year-old Russian Kamila Valiyeva has returned to the ice. The figure skater, who tested positive for a banned substance before the Olympics and whose case dominated the games in China for days, competed at the Channel One Cup in Saransk at the weekend despite suspected doping. The competition is considered a counter-event to the World Cup in Montpellier, which ended on Saturday and in which the Russian team was excluded because of the war of aggression against Ukraine.
After her freestyle, in which she collected 173.88 points and thus ended up just behind Olympic champion Anna Shcherbakova (176.12), Valiyeva said: “I’m very happy to be on the ice. The spectators give you energy when you’re tired are. Because of them you keep going.”
In the short program on Saturday Valiewa took the lead with her quadruple jumps. LSmiling, she hugged her controversial trainer Tutberidze after the competition and beamed into the TV cameras. “It’s hard to imagine, but only a month has passed since the Olympics. About four weeks – and the nightmare that the whole country went through together with Valiyeva seems like a memory from another life. As if it had this rush, the insane pressure (…) never existed,” wrote the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda.
“Why did you stop fighting?”
The banned metabolism modulator trimetazidine was discovered in a doping sample taken by Valiyeva on December 25. However, the sample was only evaluated on February 8 – one day after the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) won the team competition for Valiyeva. The medals in this competition have not yet been awarded due to the unsolved case.
The European Champion was only allowed to take part in the Olympic individual competition with reservations, following a ruling by the CAS Sports Court. After being first in the short program, she couldn’t stand the pressure in the freestyle and fell back to fourth place.
Above all, the seconds after the emotional collapse on the ice ensured that the games in Beijing will remain associated with the “Valieva case” for a long time Criticism of the gang received: “Why did you hand everything over like that? Why did you stop fighting? Explain that to me! After the Axel you handed it over.” Even the IOC President Thomas Bach, otherwise not known for critical words towards Russia, had dared to comment: When he saw the harshness with which the young athlete was received by those around her, a chill ran down his spine. “Instead of comforting her, instead of helping her after what happened, you could feel how freezing the atmosphere was.”
“It can hardly be worse for Russia”
If Valiyeva had also won a medal in the individual, the medal ceremony would not have taken place here at all. The IOC had decided that there would be no medal ceremonies in Beijing with the participation of the 15-year-olds and that they should be made up for in a dignified manner after the end of the process. A distribution of the medals from the Olympic team competition is not to be expected in the near future. Russia’s national doping agency has until August to complete its investigation.
In that case, “a lot is still in the dark,” figure skating Olympic champion Kati Witt said in February. “But if so, then the adults responsible would have to be banned from the sport forever. Knowingly asking a young athlete to do something like that cannot be surpassed in terms of inhumanity.” However, under sports law, Valiyeva is responsible for the substance in her blood. ARD doping expert Hajo Seppelt wrote under the heading “Worst case for Russian sport“: “If the case is finally confirmed, it would be child doping. It can’t get any worse for Russia.”
Russia was also not allowed to send its own team under the Russian flag to the Winter Olympics. The country’s Olympic team competes under the banner of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC). The punishment also applied to the summer games in Tokyo – a reaction to many Russian doping scandals in recent years.