The Russian skater

What should have been a triumph is a disaster. My heart goes out to the young girl who was so cruelly used and abandoned by the adults who should have been looking out for her interests.

Frankly the entire Russian team should never of been allowed to participate. If anti-doping rules are to be taken seriously the Russians should never have been at the Olympics. The legal fiction of the Russian Olympic committee is nonsense.

That being said, I don’t have a problem with any of the members of the Russian team. 

But doping. It’s real.  It gives the skater an advantage. So when it was discovered that Kamila Valieva, the favorite for the gold medal, failed a drug test …

First response?  What a surprise (all sarcasm duly  intended). 

 She claims that the banned medication that was found in her system belongs to her grandfather. However two other heart medications (which were not banned) were also found in the sample she gave.  

But … she’s 15 years old. 

The drug test was back in December,  but the results were not revealed until last week, after the team event at the Olympics. I am glad that they withheld the gold medal ostensibly won by the Russian team pending the outcome of the legal proceedings.

But the IOC should not have allowed Valieva to participate in the women’s competition.  

The legal wrangling notwithstanding, her coach should have pulled her from the competition.  She’s only 15, the pressure to succeed and the negative media attention…

She did well in the short program, taking first place.

And completely fell apart in the long program.  She touched the ice after a triple axel, then fell twice.  A complete disaster.  She finished fourth. 

Some think she deliberately failed.  Who really knows?

I blame the adults around her.  She’s a minor, a protected person, but they didn’t protect her.  She may have made some bad decisions, but they were supposed to help her, guide her … and instead they destroyed her.  She looked so broken.  

So the gold went to another Russian, Anna Shcherbakova.  She looked so lost, everyone was comforting Valieva and no one was celebrating her gold medal. She was so upset on Valieva’s behalf.  She didn’t  know how to react.

The silver went to a spoiled brat, Alexandra Trusova, who was heard to complain that everyone else on the Russian team was going home with a gold but she had to settle for silver because she didn’t skate in the team event. 

The bronze went to a Japanese skater, Sakamoto Kaori, who was not denied her moment to shine.

It was horrible to watch the aftermath.