MADRID, 17 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva, at the center of the controversy after being authorized to compete despite having tested positive in an anti-doping control, was left out this Thursday against all odds from the ice figure skating podium of the Beijing Winter Olympics .
The 15-year-old young athlete tested positive for trimetadizine last December during the national championships of her country, news that jumped out with the winter event already started and that generated a stir about the theoretical favorite in the winter competition. The CAS allowed her to compete and the IOC announced that there would be no medal ceremony if the European champion was on the podium.
Valieva, the first skater to sign a quadruple jump, had authoritatively dominated the Short Program with 82.16, and although her compatriot Anna Shcherbakova (80.20) and Japan’s Kaori Sakamoto (79.84) were stalking her for gold, she had eight points difference over the fourth position.
However, everything that happened seemed to affect the young Russian, who was far from her level in the Long Program and did not land correctly in two of her executions, which was punished by the judges who left her with 141.93 points, the fifth best note of the final, and a total of 224.09, very far from the podium.
In any case, the gold and silver went to Russia thanks to Shcherbakova, who with the second best score in the Largo (175.75), took first place (255.95), ahead of Alexandra Trusova (251.73), while the bronze went to Sakamoto (233.13).