Kamila Valieva fell from the top three

At the fourth stage of the Russian Figure Skating Grand Prix, which ended on Sunday in Kazan, the main sensation of the season, apparently so far, took place. Kamila Valieva, the most famous Russian figure skater, including thanks to the complex doping case just examined by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, did not make it to the podium, taking only fourth place, due to her own and coaching errors in the free program.

The name of Kamila Valieva, in terms of frequency of mentions during this weekend, was, presumably, unrivaled in domestic sports. There are two reasons. The first is the hearings at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on Valieva’s complex doping case, which ended on Friday. The fact that the prohibited drug trimetazidine was found in the sample of Kamila Valieva, at that time the undisputed leader in world women’s single skating, taken in December 2021 at the Russian Championships, became known during the Beijing Olympics in February last year, shortly after the end of the team tournament. The Russian team won it largely thanks to Valieva.

The Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA), having learned about the sample, temporarily suspended the athlete from competition, but the suspension was successfully challenged by an independent disciplinary committee. The International Olympic Committee (IOC), which, due to the story with Kamila Valieva, postponed the official award ceremony for the winners of the Beijing team tournament indefinitely, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), as well as the International Skating Union (ISU) did not agree with its position and filed an appeal in CAS. The protests were rejected.

Then the CAS stated that a temporary suspension could not be imposed on Kamila Valieva due to exceptional circumstances. The fact is that, as a minor figure skater (she turned 16 in April), Valieva, in accordance with the World Anti-Doping Code, was a so-called protected person. This status implies the possibility of special treatment of an athlete in situations where he commits a violation of the regulations or is suspected of it, for example, in the form of a significant, even warning, mitigation of punishment.

Kamila Valieva, who never admitted guilt, was allowed to compete in the individual Olympic tournament, but only took fourth place in it.

In September, RUSADA reported on the completion of the investigation into the emergency, and the independent anti-doping committee of the structure, having found no signs of “guilt or negligence” in the athlete’s actions, considered it unacceptable to apply any sanctions against Valieva, other than the cancellation of the results shown on the day she passed the test. positive test – December 25, 2021. In fact, she only lost the gold of the Russian championship in St. Petersburg.

Three structures did not agree with this interpretation. Moreover, together with the World Anti-Doping Agency and the ISU, RUSADA also appealed to CAS. WADA has the most stringent demands: it insists on a four-year disqualification for the skater.

The result of the hearings at CAS so far was only his statement about the deadline for rendering a verdict in the case. It must be made public “by the end of January 2024.”

The second reason is that Kamila Valieva surprised by showing up at the Kazan stage of the Grand Prix series, which began immediately after the hearings, which for Russian athletes has essentially become the main competition due to the still unresolved suspension from international tournaments. For Valieva, it was the first official start of the season. And it resulted in something very similar to failure.

After a perfectly executed short program, Valieva was in the lead with a small margin, but in the free program three opponents overtook her at once.

Gold went to Sofya Muravyova, silver to Alina Gorbacheva, and bronze to Daria Sadkova.

And if Muravyova and Gorbacheva already had serious achievements in their track records at the junior and even adult levels, Sadkova’s looked quite modest.

Kamila Valieva scored in the free program meager points by her standards (132.50) and for the first time since that very Beijing Olympics she did not make it into the top three medalists of the tournament with her participation – partly due to a miscalculation of her own coaches (and the famous Eteri Tutberidze, the most successful specialist in world figure skating for the last few years). Its performance included two sequences (sequence of jumps) with an axel at the end. But according to the regulations, there can only be one such sequence. As a result, Valieva missed several points. However, the figure skater herself was false. She fell on a quadruple sheepskin coat, and also performed the slide element – driving across the ice on her knees – so incomprehensibly that she gave the judges a reason to count it as a fall.

Arnold Kabanov