The biggest controversy of the Beijing Games ended in tears. Young Russian Olympic Committee sensation Kamila Valieva, who tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug in December, performed in Thursday’s free program a performance light years away from what she had offered this season and finished bottom of the podium of the women’s figure skating event.
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We had already seen her emotional at the end of her short program on Tuesday. But despite the weight of the controversy that had weighed on her shoulders for several days, Valieva had outclassed all her opponents.
Not Thursday. On Thursday, the 15-year-old skater collapsed.
Leaving last, to the sound of Ravel’s Bolero, Valieva was guilty of two falls, the first on a combination of jumps, the second on a quadruple. Then, she performed a triple Axel with an incomplete rotation and a hand landing on the ice.
The Russian teenager thus skated her worst performance of this season. She scored just 141.93 points on Thursday and a total score of 224.09 points, earning her fourth place.
Once her performance was over, Valieva gave traditional bows to the judges and the audience. On her cheeks, you could see the tears flowing. And on the bench, her trainer, the severe Eteri Tutberidze, was waiting for her to vilify her.
“Why did you give up? Why did you stop fighting? Explain to me… You gave up! said Tutberidze to his young protege.
It was finally another member of the ROC team who comforted the young prodigy: “It’s not your defeat. The whole world was against you. You’re going to keep skating and you’ll show them,” he told Valieva, before she left the scene without speaking to members of the media.
In the tournament
Valieva has been in turmoil since it was revealed she tested positive for trimetazidine on December 25.
The result was made public on February 8, the day after the Russian Olympic Committee triumphed in the team event. A competition in which Valieva had shown herself to be imperial.
Valieva, a product of the Tutberidze champion factory, based near Moscow, was allowed to compete in the women’s event at the last minute. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) confirmed on Monday the lifting of its provisional suspension first applied by the Russian anti-doping agency
But the CAS has not yet ruled on the merits of the case. He allowed Valieva to skate in the individual event on Tuesday and Thursday because “preventing the athlete from competing at the Games would cause her irreparable harm”, particularly because of her young age, the three referees said.
There will be a podium
Pending the end of the investigation into the young skater, the International Olympic Committee had decided that no medals would be awarded in the competitions in which Valieva took part if she was one of the three recipients.
Her fourth place in the women’s event therefore means that the three medalists will be able to climb on the Olympic podium on Friday.
But if one could believe that this fourth place for Valieva would put an end to the controversy surrounding this competition, it was quite the opposite.
In tears, her compatriot, the silver medalist Alexandra Trusova, initially refused to take part in the official ceremony.
For her part, new Olympic champion Anna Shcherbakova – also of the ROC – acknowledged that the day had “emotionally drained” her.
“I’m not able to feel anything for others,” she admitted, when asked about the rout of Valieva, her training partner.
On the podium this morning, the two Russian representatives will be accompanied by the Japanese Kaori Sakamoto, who will undoubtedly be very happy to be there.
– With AFP
