Five weeks after her dramatic crash at the Beijing Winter Games, 15-year-old Russian Kamila Valieva 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 scored 173.88 points, just behind Olympic champion Anna Shcherbakova (176.12), Valieva 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, Valieva took the lead with her quadruple jumps.
Olympic medals not yet awarded
The banned metabolism modulator trimetazidine was discovered in a doping test by Valieva on December 25. However, the sample was only evaluated on February 8 – one day after the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) won Valieva in the team competition. The medals in this competition have not yet been awarded due to the unsolved case.
According to a ruling by the CAS Sports Court, the European champion was only allowed to take part in the Olympic individual competition with reservations. Still in first place after the short program, she couldn’t stand the pressure in the freestyle and fell back to fourth place.
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.