BEIJING — Russian teenager Kamila Valieva skated at
the
Beijing Olympics for the first time on Tuesday since sport’s top court
cleared her to compete despite failing a drugs test, bursting into tears at the
end of her performance.
اضافة اعلان
Wearing an off-shoulder purple dress, the
15-year-old was cheered by the crowd when she emerged to warm up on the ice for
the short program of the women’s singles figure skating, in which she is the
favorite for gold.
Valieva put in a clean performance but was
emotional at the end of her routine.
The
Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS)
ruled on Monday that she could carry on at the Olympics, but it does not mean that
the Russian has been cleared of doping and she could still face punishment at a
later date.
“These last few days have been very
difficult for me,” Valieva told Russian television on the eve of competition.
“I am happy but at the same time tired
emotionally.”
Starting to cry, she added: “These are tears
of happiness, but also it seems sadness.”
The CAS ruling was celebrated in Russia but
provoked fury elsewhere, with the US Anti-Doping Agency accusing the country of
“hijacking” the Beijing Olympics.
It also put the spotlight once more on
doping by
Russian athletes, who are not allowed to take part at these Games
under their flag because of a state-sponsored doping program that reached its
peak at its home 2014 Sochi Olympics.
The
International Olympic Committee says
there will be no medal ceremony in Beijing if Valieva comes in the top three of
the singles event when it concludes on Thursday — unprecedented in the history
of the Games.
Valieva led Russia to team gold last week,
before a Stockholm laboratory reported that she had failed a drugs test from
December 25 for trimetazidine, which boosts endurance.
The medal ceremony for the team event will
also not take place.
In ruling that Valieva should not be
suspended, CAS said that there were “exceptional circumstances”, including her
age and the fact it had taken six weeks for her failed test to be reported.
Senior IOC member Denis Oswald told
reporters in Beijing that
Valieva informed her doping hearing that she tested
positive because of “contamination” from her grandfather’s medicine.
Russian media said Valieva allegedly drank
from the same glass that her grandfather, who takes medication for a heart
condition, had used.
Whatever
Gu can do
Nine
gold medals were up for grabs in the Chinese capital on Tuesday.
Corinne Suter won the women’s downhill to
confirm Switzerland’s alpine skiing dominance.
Her victory in the high-speed event
followed
Lara Gut-Behrami in the women’s
super-G, while Beat Feuz won the men’s downhill at the start of the Games and
Marco Odermatt took the men’s giant slalom.
Two-time skiing gold medalist Mikaela
Shiffrin, who is yet to win a medal in Beijing, came 18th as she warmed up for
the alpine combined event on Thursday.
Defending champion
Sofia Goggia of Italy
took silver, capping a remarkable return to form after she injured her knee in
a crash last month.
There was another Swiss winner earlier in
the day in the form of Mathilde Gremaud in women’s freestyle slopestyle.
Gremaud triumphed ahead of Californian-born
Chinese sensation Eileen Gu, the face of the Games and gold-medal winner last
week. Gu, 18, had to settle for silver.
Her Chinese team-mate Su Yiming, who is 18
later this week, also now has one silver and one gold after he dominated the
men’s snowboard Big Air to take the title even before his third and final run.
In a touching moment, Su pointed at his
parents when he was standing on the podium.
Austria’s Anna Gasser won a dramatic snowboard women’s
Big Air gold to retain her title.
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