Thunderbolt on the Olympic ice: the Russian skater Kamila Valieva, at the heart of an embarrassing doping affair, broke down in the free program on Thursday and missed the victory and the podium which would have forced, for the first time in the ‘story, the Games organizers to cancel the medal ceremony.
• Read also: Why Russian skater Kamila Valieva can continue her Games?
Valieva, 15, ended up looking her age.
The Russian teenager, in turmoil for more than a week, completely missed her free program: instead of dazzling the judges with her quadruple jumps, her trademark, she chained blunders, failed receptions and other falls , in front of amazed spectators and journalists.
AFP
Her announced coronation, after her first place in the short program on Tuesday, turned into a nightmare: the one who had been undefeated until then since her senior debut finished in fourth place with 224.09 points, a score very far from her standards.
The title went to her compatriot and training partner Anna Shcherbakova, 17 and 2021 world champion, with 255.95 points, ahead of another Russian Alexandra Trusova (251.73 pts) and the Japanese Kaori Sakamoto (233.13 points).
Valieva was caught out on the ice by the case dominating the Games.
The 2022 European champion was provisionally suspended on February 8 by the Russian anti-doping agency for a positive doping test for trimetazidine, the result of which fell the day after her victory in the Olympic team event with Russia.
This product, used to relieve angina pectoris, has been banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency since 2014 because it promotes blood circulation.
If this control was carried out on the sidelines of the Russian Championships at the end of December, the Valieva affair splashes the Games. The day after the notification of his positive test, Valieva had obtained the lifting of his suspension, a decision confirmed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) only 24 hours before his short program, which caused a lot of reaction, in the United States in particular.
If Valieva had finished in one of the first three places, the International Olympic Committee had warned that the medal ceremony would not take place until the anti-doping procedure against her had been completed.
The first three, who will receive their medals on Friday evening, took part in a first award ceremony on the ice while Valieva, who ignored questions from journalists in the press area, was sealed off in the locker room.
“I suffered a lot for her because, from the first jump, we saw that it was going badly. How difficult it was and how heavy it was,” sympathized the new Olympic champion.
The American Mikaela Shiffrin was supposed to be the queen of alpine skiing events, but the three-time winner of the general classification of the World Cup and current world No.1 has had a series of disappointments since her arrival in China: eliminations in giant slalom and in slalom, 9th in super-G and 18th in downhill.
The combination was to allow her to save her Games: starting well after the descent, Shiffrin again made a mistake in the slalom after only a few gates.
“People say it’s a story of pressure, there were times during the Games where I felt a lot of pressure, the expectations, but it didn’t affect me during my races in general, and it was certainly not superior to what I had already known in my career, at the Worlds, at the last Olympics”, swept away the American, who had won gold in slalom at the Sochi Games in 2014 then in giant in Pyeongchang in 2018.
The title returned, as in 2018, to the Swiss Michelle Gisin, ahead of her compatriot Wendy Holdener and the Italian Federica Brignone. And Shiffrin will play his last card, in the team event on Saturday.
Norway consolidated their lead in the medal table (29 medals, including 14 gold) ahead of Germany and the United States, thanks to the title of their Nordic combined team carried by Joergen Graabak who offered his third medal , including two gold, in three races.
In ice hockey, the Canadians were crowned for the fifth time by beating their great American rivals in the final (3-2).