It was “chilling” to see the “cold” way distraught Kamila Valieva was treated by her Russian coach after falls in her figure skating routine at Beijing 2022, says International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach.
Valieva, weighed down by a doping scandal and questions over the wisdom of allowing her to compete, came fourth on Thursday after several mistakes.
Valieva was favourite to win the women’s event, having set several world records in the short time since she made her senior debut in October. She had led after Tuesday’s short programme but the series of falls and messy landings on Thursday ruled her out of a podium finish.
“When I saw how she was received by her closest entourage with what appeared to be a tremendous coldness, it was chilling to see this, rather than giving her comfort, rather than to try to help her,” said Bach.
Tutberidze, whose training methods were already under the spotlight, did put her arm around the young Russian while she waited for her score. But moments before that had demanded to know: “Why did you let it go? Explain it to me, why?”
Bach said he was “very, very disturbed” by what he had seen when watching the competition on television.
“All of this does not give me much confidence in this closest entourage of Kamila, neither with regard to what happened in the past, nor as far as it concerns the future,” he added.
“How to deal, how to address, how to treat a minor athlete at the age of 15 under such an obvious mental stress.”
Valieva is the subject of an anti-doping investigation after testing positive for angina drug trimetazidine. The World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) has also said it will be investigating Valieva’s entourage, including coaches, doctors and other adults surrounding her.
Before discovering she had failed a test, she had helped the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) win the team event at Beijing 2022, but the medals for that will only be handed out once the doping case has concluded.
In response to Bach, the deputy prime minister of Russia, Dmitry Chernyshenko, said: “We are deeply disappointed to see an IOC President weave his own fictional narrative on the feelings of our athletes, and then present these publicly as the voice of the IOC.
“This is frankly inappropriate and wrong.
“Win or lose we know our athletes are world-beating, and they do too.”
BBC
