Russian politician issues Valieva plan after Olympic heartbreak
A member of the Russian State Duma’s Committee for Sport and Tourism, Dmitry Svishev, has come up with an initiative to give a state award to Kamila Valieva, who finished fourth in the women’s individual figure skating event in Beijing.
Svishev said the 15-year-old prodigy was forced to deal with enormous pressure after her positive doping test result was revealed after already competing at the Games.
“These people have achieved what they wanted,” Svishev said, taking aim at the authorities who had sought to suspend Valieva.
“We need to figure out how it happened that they took a sample in December, but revealed the result only before the Olympics.
“There was unprecedented pressure on our girl, who did not deserve this. She was a leader, everyone knew that she was far ahead, and what happened looked like a planned action.
“We propose to financially encourage and reward her, despite the fourth place in individual competitions,” he added.
Valieva was cleared for continued competition by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) after the positive result for heart medicine trimetazidine emerged after she had already won gold with the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) in the team event in Beijing.
After putting on a valiant performance in Tuesday’s short skate routine to lead the field in the women’s individual event, Valieva seemed badly impacted by the scandal in a bitterly disappointing free skate program on Thursday, leading her to finish fourth overall, as fellow Russians Anna Shcherbakova and Alexandra Trusova won gold and silver respectively.
