Kamila Valieva after her speech. Photo: Valery Sharifulin/TASS
Kamila Valieva left the mixed zone without a word after performing in a free program. She had nothing to say to reporters. However, if I were people with microphones and voice recorders, I would not have asked a 15-year-old schoolgirl anything on Thursday evening.
I feel extremely sorry for her. Honestly. But I can’t agree that she lost because of the persecution organized by the IOC and other bad officials from WADA. The pressure on her, the main favorite, and without all this trimetazidine history was enormous. And the favorite, let me remind you, does not always climb the Olympic peak. In figure skating, this is rarely the case. Such a trick failed neither Michelle Kwan in Nagano-98, nor Irina Slutskaya in Salt Lake City-2002, nor Sasha Cohen in Turin-2006, nor Korean Kim Yu Na in Sochi-2014, nor Evgenia Medvedeva in Pyeongchang-2018.
Games are the toughest tournament. With special energy and philosophy. Here they do not give, as sometimes happens at the world championships, a medal for long service. Once every four years, on a certain day and hour, you must go out and wave your wings to the envy of everyone. And in figure skating you have two attempts. Or rather, you have two tasks that you need to solve at all costs.
On Tuesday, Kamila Valieva coped with the first rebus by 5 minus. She confidently (albeit with a blot) presented the short program, arousing the admiration of those who supported her. And such people were, by the way, in America, and in Holland, and in Great Britain. Even among journalists. In Russia, many commentators, in a fit of joy, showed the muzzle of the enemies from the IOC, who accused the air athlete of doping. Kamila, I repeat, withstood all this negative pressure on February 15. Otherwise, the curtain would have fallen during the short performance. Someone will say: but the bomb planted under Kamila was a delayed action. But the Olympics is again a bomb in itself.
Proceedings about how trimetazidine got into Valieva's body (with the «help» of her grandfather or a doctor) will continue for a long time. And all this mess will continue to hit the thin nerves of the athlete. But anyway, she got caught. And who is to blame here is a rhetorical question.