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Kamilia Valieva slipped and fell during her free skate en route to a fourth-place finish in women’s single skating, failing to capture what would’ve been her second presumptive gold medal at the Beijing Olympics.
International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach, however, did not see any failure on the ice. Instead, he saw it in the “tremendous coldness” of her entourage toward the 15-year-old Russian skater, who is embroiled in a doping controversy that has overwhelmed the competition’s focus.
“I must say I was very, very disturbed yesterday when I watched the competition on TV,” Bach told reporters. “First in her performance, how high the pressure on her must have been. … In particular for a girl of 15 years old. To see her there struggling on the ice, seeing how she tries to compose herself again, how then she tries to finish her program, you could in every movement in the body language, you could feel that this is immense mental stress and maybe she would have preferred just to leave the ice and try to leave this story behind her.
“But this was not all, when I afterwards saw how she was received by her closest entourage with that appeared to be a tremendous coldness, it was chilling to see this, rather than giving her comfort, rather than try to help her.”
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Eteri Tutberidze, Valieva’s infamously strict trainer, could be heard on the broadcast chiding her prodigy, asking her: “Why did you let it go? Why did you stop fighting?”
Said Bach: “You could feel this chilling atmosphere, this distance and if you were interpreting the body language of them, it got even worse because this was even some kind of dismissive gestures I saw there on TV.”
Valieva tested positive for banned substance trimetazidine from a sample taken in December, but the Russian Anti-Doping Agency claimed they did not receive the positive test until last week. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), in a ruling, allowed her to compete, with a full investigation to follow.
Hours after her shocking fourth-place finish Thursday, the CAS announced an “untenable delay” at the Swedish testing lab due to COVID-19 labor shortages.
After dominating her short program, Valieva entered the free skate as an overwhelming favorite to finish in the top spot, but uncharacteristically stumbled in the free skate. She has become the source of much ridicule from opponents and analysts, who strongly opposed her continued participation in the competition.
Because she is just 15 years old, others have shifted their attention to those around Valieva, who were more likely responsible for the alleged tainted performance.
“All of this does not give me much confidence in this closest entourage of Kamila, neither with regard to what happened in the past, nor as far as it concerns the future,” Bach said. “How to deal, how to address, how to treat a minor athlete at the age of 25 under such an obvious mental stress.”
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