Kamila Valieva – the 15-year-old Russian figure skater at the center of a doping scandal – botched her free skate routine on Thursday and finished fourth in individual competition. Her Russian teammates, Anna Shcherbakova and Alexandra Trusova, captured gold and silver. Japan’s Kaori Sakamoto won bronze.
Valieva fell several times during Thursday’s performance, a stunning series of mishaps after her flawless short program catapulted her to the top of the field earlier this week.
The International Olympic Committee ruled that Valieva could compete while she was being investigated for using a banned substance, which she claims was accidentally ingested. But if Valieva won, her victory wouldn’t be certified until she was cleared of wrongdoing, a development that threatened to delay the awards ceremony.
The Associated Press reports on the scene in Beijing on Thursday:
Moments after she walked off, workers began setting up for a flower ceremony that the International Olympic Committee said would not take place if Valieva was in the top three. Medals will be handed out Friday at a ceremony that would not have occurred in Beijing if Valieva had reached the podium.
Valieva entered the Olympic Games as the gold-medal favorite but was shrouded in controversy after it was revealed she tested positive for a prohibited drug. The test took place in December but was only revealed this week.
The AP provides context:
Valieva has claimed the drug triggering her positive, trimetazidine, entered her system by accident. But the World Anti-Doping Agency filed a brief stating that two other substances she acknowledged taking, L-carnitine and Hypoxen — though both legal — undercut the argument that a banned substance could have been ingested in error.
“You use all of that to increase performance,” U.S. Anti-Doping Agency CEO Travis Tygart said.
Tygart told The New York Times that the combination of drugs – ostensibly used to treat a heart condition – “seem to be aimed at increasing endurance, reducing fatigue and promoting greater efficiency in using oxygen.”
The Times adds:
Earlier on Tuesday, a member of the International Olympic Committee’s executive board told reporters that Valieva’s positive result might have stemmed from a case of contamination with medication that her grandfather had been taking. And in testimony provided to an earlier hearing with Russian antidoping officials on Feb. 9, and later submitted as evidence in Sunday’s hearing in Beijing, Valieva’s mother said her daughter had been taking Hypoxen because of heart “variations.”
Valieva’s grandfather did not testify in the original hearing in Russia, but he did provide a video shot in a car, according to a portion of the document. In the video, the document said, he said that he had used trimetazidine periodically when he experienced “attacks” and showed a packet of the medication to the camera. Valieva’s mother said in her evidence in the Russian hearing that Valieva’s grandfather had accompanied the teenager to practice on a daily basis and had stayed with Valieva until her mother returned home from work.
Russian female figure skaters – competing under the name “Russian Olympic Committee” because their home country was banned from competition for a series of doping scandals – won the gold medal for team competition. That medal is now in limbo pending a ruling on Valieva’s drug use.
The AP reports:
In the meantime, IOC President Thomas Bach tried to appease angry American skaters by offering Olympic torches to those who helped win their team silver medals, The Associated Press learned late Wednesday. The torches are meant to serve as holdover gifts while the world awaits the resolution of Valieva’s doping case.
“It’s unfortunate that we aren’t able to get our medals,” said Karen Chen, who competed in the team event for the U.S. and finished 16th in the women’s program Thursday night. “I have yet to see the torch, but once that is like given to us, I think it will be such a special moment that we will cherish forever.”
