Funny Skit of Figure Skater Continually Falling
A Russian star falls and another rises in a blur of jumps, tumbles and tears.
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BEIJING — Kamila Valieva, the Russian figure skating star at the center of a doping scandal, showed up at the Olympic rink on Thursday night facing a single, heavy expectation, especially heavy for a 15-year-old who has soared to the top of her sport in a quick four months, only to fall from it while the world was watching.
Her job was to win, for Russia. Continuing the country's streak of two consecutive Olympic gold medals in the women's event was at stake.
In a mostly black costume with flame-red gloves that glowed at the end of her long arms, she set out, determined, as Maurice Ravel's "Bolero" began to play. But jump by jump, as her routine crumbled after uncharacteristic falls and stumbles, she knew a victory that everyone had once expected her to deliver was not to be.
Instead of ending the night in first place to perhaps salvage an Olympics gone bad after she was found to have tested positive weeks ago for a banned heart medicine, she finished it by skating off the ice in tears. Her coach, Eteri Tutberidze, greeted her not with a hug, but with a stern look.
"Why did you let it go?" Tutberidze asked in Russian in a scene broadcast on live television. "Why did you stop fighting? Explain it to me, why? You let it go after that axel."
Valieva did not reply.
The Russians were expected to sweep the medals, with Valieva finishing first and living up to her reputation as one of the best skaters in history. But a Russian teammate, Anna Shcherbakova, won gold. Yet another Russian teenager, Alexandra Trusova, won the silver. Valieva, who just 11 days ago was deemed unbeatable because of her difficult jumps, textbook technique and prima ballerina's artistry, was fourth.
Shcherbakova, the reigning world champion, won the gold with a smooth and poignant performance that included two quadruple jumps, scoring 255.95 points. Trusova won silver with 251.73 points. Kaori Sakamoto of Japan took the bronze with 233.13 points, saying she was both surprised and ecstatic about winning the medal.
Valieva finished with a score of 224.09 after winning the short program, which had given her the lead going into the decisive free skate.
An air of awkwardness loomed over the victory ceremony on Thursday night, as Shcherbakova, 17, sprung onto the top step of the podium to accept her stuffed mascot panda, a fuzzy reminder of her win until she receives her gold medal on Friday.
"I was feeling a lot of pleasure because I happened to be in the right time and the right place and did the right things," Shcherbakova said. But she quickly added, obliquely referring to Valieva's situation, "On the other hand, I feel this emptiness inside."
Trusova, 17, was less thrilled about the finishing order. With five quadruple jumps, including three clean ones, she had climbed to second place after finishing fourth in the short program. She had been sure that her icy, rocker's performance to the "Cruella" soundtrack was good enough to win.
After the results were finalized, cameras captured her weeping and screaming in anger, as she hesitated to return to the ice for the award ceremony.
"I hate it!" Trusova, who had been swept up in the week of controversy along with Valieva and her teammates, said while on camera near Valieva at the side of the rink. "I don't want to do anything in figure skating ever in my life! Everyone has a gold medal, and I don't!"
Later, she told reporters, with her eyes rimmed with red from crying, "I am not happy with the result. There is no happiness." She said she had been alone at the Olympics and had cried because she missed her mother and her dogs.
With Valieva off the podium, the awards ceremony was held after all. If she had finished in the top three, Olympics officials had said that there would be no medals awarded until her doping case's resolution, which could take months.
The awarding of medals for the team event remains on hold. Powered by Valieva's remarkable performance that included the first quadruple jump by a woman in the Olympics, the Russian team won gold and the Americans and the Japanese wait for silver and bronze.
At the center of this chaos is Valieva's positive test weeks before the Olympics for a banned drug called trimetazidine. The test was made public last week, and according to documents from an urgent hearing with arbitrators in Beijing, it was found that Valieva had two other drugs in her system. They were not banned substances, but antidoping officials say the combination of the three drugs seems to be used by athletes in an attempt to increase endurance.
Hours after the competition had ended on Thursday, the panel released a report that said the arbitrators chose to allow Valieva to continue at the Olympics because they felt a suspension would risk "irreparable harm" to her.
"None of this is the fault of the athlete, and it has put her in a remarkably difficult position where she faces a lifetime of work being taken from her within days of the biggest event of her short career," the panel wrote in a 41-page judgment.
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Valieva's entourage, including her coaches and team officials, are under investigation by doping officials. That includes Tutberidze, who ended the day with another success for her program run out of a rink in Moscow. With Shcherbakova and Trusova finishing one-two, it is the second straight Olympics that Tutberidze's skaters have won the gold and silver.
But in Beijing, Valieva was expected to be her star student, and the Games did start out that way.
In the team event, Valieva dazzled with her exquisite artistry and jumps so good that she could teach a master class in body positioning and speed. But on Thursday, when Russia expected her to win convincingly, Valieva, often so elegant, made mistakes. Again and again and again. Her cold determination melted into despair. The crowd gasped in unison.
Although Valieva landed her first jump, a quad salchow, she fell on two other jumps, looking disoriented as she struggled to right herself. In a perplexing performance that shocked even herself, she had errors on nearly every single jump, including her normally high-soaring quadruple jumps that she usually lands with barely a sound.
The audience felt so sorry for her that it started encouraging her with cheers. Her coaches, looking on from the side of the rink, did not join in. Tutberidze shook her head and, at one point, stared at the ceiling as her prodigy flailed on the ice.
After finishing their programs, Shcherbakova and Trusova both gave jubilant fist pumps. At the end of hers, Valieva slapped the air in frustration. For a prolonged moment, she skated around the ice with a look of disbelief as if trying to figure out what had just happened. She had come into the Olympics as the favorite to win — by far — and she had failed. Some fans began chanting, "Ka-mi-la!"
Once the final standings were decided, Shcherbakova celebrated in her sparkly burgundy dress and posed for photos with the Russian Olympic Committee flag behind her (Russia's national flag and anthem are not allowed at the Games because of a sweeping doping scandal).
Valieva was nowhere to be found. It has been a rough week and a half.
In an interview after being cleared to compete in the individual event, Valieva told Russia's Channel One, the state-run TV station, that she had not slept at all on Sunday night after spending seven hours in a hearing with arbitrators who were considering her participation.
"I'm happy but emotionally I'm tired, so this is tears of happiness, I think, mixed with a bit of sorrow," she told Channel One. "But I'm surely happy to be at the Olympic Games and to try to represent our country, and I hope I will fully focus and demonstrate my results."
With her doping case looming, focusing had proved impossible. It took years for her to get to this point, on the cusp of her life's goal.
Winning an Olympic gold medal had been her aim since she was just a young girl growing up in Kazan, a city about 450 miles east of Moscow. In those early years of skating, she rose quickly in the sport, pegged as a natural.
Years ago, a tiny Valieva dressed in a tiny white costume straight out of "Swan Lake" glided across the rink doing her tiny jumps and moving her body with a dancer's soft arm positions and elastic legs. Even at that age, she moved so gracefully to the music that the notes seemed programmed into her DNA.
But on Thursday, she was a different Kamila Valieva, one whose name will forever be synonymous with one of the biggest doping controversies in Olympic history — the exact opposite of a little girl's dream.
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Clutching her trusty worn stuffed toy rabbit in the area where skaters wait for their scores, the reality of her finish continued to sink in. She sat, and sat some more, frozen, as her coaches flanked her.
After several minutes, she rose and disappeared behind a curtain to an area beneath the stands, with one coach — not Tutberidze — draping an arm over her shoulder. With her head down, Valieva walked past reporters waiting to speak with her.
Tutberidze's other Olympians, like comets, have all faded away before a second Games, most gone after burning brightly, if fleetingly, in their success.
If history is a guide, other young skaters in the Russian sports machine are primed to take their place.
"Respected sports officials, you have destroyed the most talented figure skater in the world," Andrei Zhurankov, a Russian commentator, said on television there.
Alan Blinder , Daniel Victor , Ivan Nechepurenko and Ilya Gurevich contributed reporting.
Feb. 17, 2022, 11:06 a.m. ET
Tears and sobs, and not just from Kamila Valieva, follow her crushing Olympic end.
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Kamila Valieva, the Russian star at the center of a doping scandal, knew immediately it had all gone wrong.
Her program over, her Olympics over, Valieva broke her final pose with a dismissive wave of her right hand. By then, she was already fighting back tears. Those would arrive in earnest soon enough — the bitter, disappointing, emotional end of more than a week of whispers and insinuations that followed the revelation that she had tested positive for a banned drug.
The women's free skate had promised to be one of the most-watched events of the Games. But few could have expected its stunning denouement.
For more than a week, Valieva, 15, had been buried under an avalanche of distractions: the integrity of her success and her skills were under attack, as was the character of the adults around her.
She had stepped on the ice wearing the same face she's worn all week in Beijing: Nearly expressionless, doing her best to block out all the outside distractions, or at least not acknowledge them. Now that her free skate was over, she buried her face in her hands.
As the crowd responded with its loudest applause of the night, her blank expression returned. After a few halfhearted waves, she stepped off the ice to be greeted by her coach, Eteri Tutberidze. They did not hug.
"Why did you let it go?" Tutberidze asked in Russian in a scene broadcast on live television. "Why did you stop fighting? Explain it to me, why? You let it go after that axel."
Valieva did not reply.
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Moments later, waiting for Valieva's scores, Tutberidze held her arm around the teenager's shoulders. Valieva had put on a mask by then, but it did nothing to shield her disappointment. The scores confirmed the worst: the world's best skater, who had finished the short program in first place, had tumbled off the podium completely, her dreams dashed in a series of uncharacteristic stumbles and falls. A different Russian skater, 17-year-old Anna Shcherbakova, would be the Olympic champion.
Several members of the Russian contingent were in tears by then, including not only Valieva but the silver medalist, Alexandra Trusova, too. In seconds, the scene at the edge of the rink quickly shifted to a blur of disparate emotions — crushing disappointment, raw frustration, incalculable pain — as the weight of a doping scandal and the pressures of years of training burst forth from several masked teenagers at once.
"I hate it!" Trusova was seen on camera saying. "I don't want to do anything in figure skating ever in my life! Everyone has a gold medal, and I don't!"
Valieva's two Russian teammates, Shcherbakova and Trusova, seemed to struggle to process the news they had won gold and silver medals, their personal moments of triumph marred by the chaotic scene. Shcherbakova, 17, appeared unwilling — or unable — to celebrate with the 15-year-old Valieva only yards away. Trusova, 17, suggested, at least initially, that she did not want to take part in the victory ceremony.
Nearby, the bronze medalist, Kaori Sakamoto of Japan, was crying as well, her achievement producing what was very likely a different outpouring of emotion: joy.
All three would eventually come out for the ceremony that few had expected to take place. Called to the top step, Shcherbakova leapt into the air, arms aloft, as she accepted her stuffed animal souvenir, which many of the top finishers have received as placeholders ahead of their official medal ceremonies the next day.
"I was feeling a lot of pleasure because I happened to be in the right time and the right place and did the right things," Shcherbakova said. But she quickly added, "On the other hand, I feel this emptiness inside."
On NBC, Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir called the scenes around the end of the competition "heartbreaking" and "devastating," and made clear, over and over, that they believed it had been unfair — to Valieva, to the other skaters, to viewers around the world — for the 15-year-old to have competed, and especially under the crushing weight of scandal and expectations and everything else.
"She should not have been allowed to skate in this Olympic event," said Lipinski, the 1998 Olympic champion. She added that it had made her angry that the adults around Valieva didn't "make better decisions."
"It's not fair," Lipinski said as the sobs played out on the screen, for a 15-year-old to have dealt with all of this.
Her colleague Johnny Weir posted a video to his Instagram story soon after the broadcast ended, calling the night the "most bizarre and heartbreaking event I have seen in my entire life."
"I hope that it is never repeated," Weir said.
Adam Rippon, who coaches the American Mariah Bell, who finished 10th, used an expletive on Twitter to describe the chaotic end to the competition. And on Russian state television, the commentator Andrei Zhuranko thundered, "Sports officials, you have broken the most talented figure skater in the world."
Ivan Nechepurenko , Ilya Gurevich and Ilaria Parogni contributed reporting.
Figure Skating: Women's Singles › | Short Program | Free Skate | Points | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gold | Anna Shcherbakova Russian Olympic Committee | 80.20 | 175.75 | 255.95 |
| Silver | Alexandra Trusova Russian Olympic Committee | 74.60 | 177.13 | 251.73 |
| Bronze | Kaori Sakamoto Japan | 79.84 | 153.29 | 233.13 |
Latest Medal Count › | Total | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Norway | 16 | 8 | 13 | 37 |
| Russian Olympic Committee | 6 | 12 | 14 | 32 |
| Germany | 12 | 10 | 5 | 27 |
| Canada | 4 | 8 | 14 | 26 |
| United States | 8 | 10 | 7 | 25 |
Feb. 17, 2022, 10:49 a.m. ET
reporting from Beijing
Anna Shcherbakova is done with her news conference after posing for a few photos. She was in a light mood, expressing excitement about her own triumph — "I just want to believe that I'm not dreaming," she said. Otherwise, she quickly declined to answer questions when asked about her teammate Kamila Valieva.
Feb. 17, 2022, 10:37 a.m. ET
reporting from Beijing
Anna Shcherbakova, who won the gold, said she sympathized with her teammate Kamila Valieva, who came in fourth place: "I saw from her first jump how difficult it was, what a burden it was for her. And I understand what an athlete feels. It's more than difficult to go on after a couple of things like that happen. And I will tell her what I think about this later, personally."
Feb. 17, 2022, 10:33 a.m. ET
reporting from Beijing
Anna Shcherbakova, the gold medalist, said she had mixed feelings about the outcome. "I was feeling a lot of pleasure because I happened to be in the right time and the right place and did the right things — that's the important thing," she said, but added: "On the other hand, I feel this emptiness inside."
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Feb. 17, 2022, 10:30 a.m. ET
reporting from Beijing
Asked about the uncertainty over whether there would be a medal ceremony, Anna Shcherbakova said that it's very important for every athlete to be able to stand on the podium after winning. "I think this moment, when you stand on the podium, it helps you to realize what work have you done."
Feb. 17, 2022, 10:26 a.m. ET
reporting from Beijing
Anna Shcherbakova, who won the gold medal, said she had always dreamed about this moment with every competition. "Today," she continued, "I did it."
Feb. 17, 2022, 10:24 a.m. ET
reporting from Beijing
Alexandra Trusova, the silver medalist, says she is happy that there will be a medal ceremony. "Of course it will be extremely pleasant for me to receive my medal."
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Feb. 17, 2022, 10:21 a.m. ET
reporting from Beijing
Anna Shcherbakova, the gold medalist, spoke briefly in English when she passed me: "After my performance, I felt like I did my maximum at the right time, the right place." She added: "I think I need some time to understand what happened."
Feb. 17, 2022, 10:13 a.m. ET
reporting from Beijing
At a news conference following the competition, Kaori Sakamoto, of Japan, tells reporters: "To be honest, I was very surprised that I won bronze. I am simply quite happy for now."
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Feb. 17, 2022, 10:07 a.m. ET
reporting from Beijing
I'm watching Kaori Sakamoto chat with a group of Japanese reporters, and I'm not certain I've ever seen an athlete — in any sport, at any place — so visibly ecstatic. Even with her mask, you can tell she's beaming.
Feb. 17, 2022, 10:04 a.m. ET
Here are the errors that knocked Kamila Valieva off the podium.
Feb. 17, 2022, 9:58 a.m. ET
reporting from Beijing
An overjoyed Kaori Sakamoto approached a group of reporters and flashed the two-finger victory sign. Then the bronze medalist laughed, bending over with delight — and held up three fingers instead.
Feb. 17, 2022, 9:53 a.m. ET
reporting from Beijing
Alexandra Trusova, the silver medalist, spoke softly to reporters in Russian. She appeared stricken and rattled, her eyes wet. She took deep breaths and looked toward the floor when she walked away.
Feb. 17, 2022, 9:15 a.m. ET
reporting from Beijing
A victory ceremony — don't call it a medals ceremony because for now they get just a stuffed animal — is happening now, with Anna Shcherbakova, Alexandra Trusova and Kaori Sakamoto taking their places on the familiar three-tier platform. Shcherbakova leapt into the air, arms aloft, as she accepted her souvenir.
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Feb. 17, 2022, 9:14 a.m. ET
reporting from Beijing
Instead of a coronation for a teenager who already is considered by many to be one of the greatest figure skaters in recent history, the event ended in a surreal scene captured by TV cameras, with the gold medalist, Valieva's Russian teammate Anna Shcherbakova, seemingly unwilling — or unable — to celebrate; the silver medalist, Alexandra Trusova, appearing to initially refuse to take part in the victory ceremony; and the surprise bronze medalist, Kaori Sakamoto of Japan, crying tears of joy.
Feb. 17, 2022, 9:10 a.m. ET
reporting from Beijing
Olympic athletes must walk through the room of journalists after they leave the ice. They're not required to stop and chat, but by custom, most do. This week, Valieva has exercised her right to remain silent, repeatedly walking through such rooms while averting eye contact and declining to attend a news conference after her leading short program performance.
Feb. 17, 2022, 9:09 a.m. ET
reporting from Beijing
Your final results: Anna Shcherbakova of Russia takes gold, Alexandra Trusova of Russia takes silver and Japan's Kaori Sakamoto earns bronze. Kamila Valieva, considered the world's best coming into the Olympics, finishes a disappointing fourth.
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Feb. 17, 2022, 9:07 a.m. ET
reporting from Beijing
Kamila Valieva trudged through a room of journalists in silence, her face hidden behind a mask. She did not seem to make eye contact with anyone.
Feb. 17, 2022, 9:02 a.m. ET
reporting from Beijing
Kamila Valieva stepped on the ice wearing the same face she's worn all week in Beijing: Nearly expressionless, doing her best to block out all of the outside distractions, or at least not acknowledge them.
After the performance, she finally let out some emotion, burying her face in her hands and cracking a smile for a brief moment as the crowd erupted in its loudest applause of the night. But she quickly returned to her blank expression, as she stepped off the ice to be greeted by her coach, Eteri Tutberidze. They did not hug.
In the "kiss and cry," Tutberidze held her arm around her shoulders, but the disappointment was clear on Valieva's masked face.
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Feb. 17, 2022, 8:58 a.m. ET
reporting from Beijing
That puts her in fourth place.
Feb. 17, 2022, 8:58 a.m. ET
reporting from Beijing
The free skate score for Kamila Valieva: 141.93.
Feb. 17, 2022, 8:56 a.m. ET
reporting from Beijing
Valieva stumbled or fell at least four times.
Feb. 17, 2022, 8:55 a.m. ET
reporting from Beijing
The gasps gave way to audible sighs as Kamila Valieva's performance veered away from the extraordinary standard she had set over these Games.
Feb. 17, 2022, 8:53 a.m. ET
reporting from Beijing
A chorus of gasps as Kamila Valieva falls twice.
Feb. 17, 2022, 8:51 a.m. ET
Anna Shcherbakova of Russia takes the lead.
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And now, the moment the sporting world has been waiting for. The most scrutinized athlete of the Beijing Games, Kamila Valieva, is taking to the Capital Indoor Stadium ice once more. She's looking for an Olympic title — one that may not ever be awarded.
She comes just after her teammate, Anna Shcherbakova, advanced to first place herself.
With a top-three performance, Valieva would guarantee a medal sweep for the Russians. If, you know, there are medals to award.
Feb. 17, 2022, 8:50 a.m. ET
reporting from Beijing
The most scrutinized athlete of the Beijing Games, Kamila Valieva, is taking to the Capital Indoor Stadium ice once more. She's looking for an Olympic title — one that may or may not ever be awarded.
Feb. 17, 2022, 8:45 a.m. ET
Kaori Sakamoto of Japan falls short of Trusova.
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Kaori Sakamoto, whose third-place finish in the short program was the surprise of the day on Tuesday, looked almost relieved to be over with her Thursday performance, a thrilling and exquisitely performed routine.
She was all smiles as she came off the ice, letting out a triumphant double-fist-pump, and later a shrug.
Still, it wasn't enough to pass Trusova. She's nearly 20 points behind in second place, and two more Russian skaters — Anna Shcherbakova and Kamila Valieva, two of the best in the world — remain.
Feb. 17, 2022, 8:36 a.m. ET
Alexandra Trusova of Russia is way, way ahead of the pack.
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Skating to "Cruella" and dressed in black, Russia's Alexandra Trusova thrilled this stadium with a physics-challenging performance of spins and jumps that had many in the crowd clapping along with her free skate.
A cohort of Russian athletes greeted her performance with a standing ovation as they waved the flag of the Russian Olympic Committee, and Trusova pumped her fist in jubilation once she finished.
Trusova, 17, finished third at the world championship last year and fell early in her program on Tuesday. She also under-rotated a triple axel but still pulled off a routine that earned a 74.60, which was good enough for fourth place headed into the free skate.
On Thursday, she pulled off a 177.13, best of the night so far, and moved into first place, more than 37 points ahead of Wakaba Higuchi of Japan. There are three skaters remaining.
Feb. 17, 2022, 8:30 a.m. ET
Wakaba Higuchi of Japan nails a triple axel.
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An electric moment here as Wakaba Higuchi of Japan nails a triple axel, the first of the day successfully landed. The crowd roared, but then let out a disappointed groan as she fell on a subsequent jump.
If points were awarded for great musical choices, and if New York Times journalists were judges (very bad idea), she would score highly for performing to a medley from "The Lion King." Nothing like ending on "Circle of Life."
There are four superb skaters ahead, but for now she's in first place after scoring 140.93 for a combined score of 214.44.
Feb. 17, 2022, 8:26 a.m. ET
Quadruple jumps are about to change women's figure skating at the Olympics.
For the first time, the quadruple jump could be essential for Olympic medals in women's figure skating.
Before the questions about doping surrounded her, Kamila Valieva, was best known for her perfectly executed quadruple jumps. She and her Russian teammates — Anna Shcherbakova and Alexandra Trusova — are expected to attempt several of these four-revolution jumps in Thursday's free skate, the only program in which they are allowed to perform quads.
Quads are worth many more points than other jumps. Landing them — even poorly — gives that skater a huge advantage over her competition.
Feb. 17, 2022, 8:23 a.m. ET
reporting from Beijing
Another "Lion King" medley in the women's competition confirms it is the greatest Disney movie of all time.
Feb. 17, 2022, 8:19 a.m. ET
You Young of South Korea opens the top group by taking the top spot.
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If there was any doubt that we are now in the top tier of competitors, You Young of Korea erased it. Performing to the familiar songs of "Les Misérables," she led off the final group with a 142.75 for a combined score of 213.09, putting her comfortably in first place with five skaters remaining.
Feb. 17, 2022, 8:10 a.m. ET
'Right from the get-go, it was rough,' Karen Chen says.
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Karen Chen was candid: Her showing in Thursday's free skate — with a stumble, a pop and a fall — was a letdown.
"Right from the get-go, it was rough," she said after leaving the ice. "Like three seconds in, I already tripped and I didn't even get to my first jumping pass yet. So it was definitely a struggle right from the beginning."
She could not, she said, diagnose what had gone wrong.
"I do know that I never quite got my feet underneath me," Chen said. "I just felt a little bit off, and I was just fighting to pull in on everything and stay upright, so it was a hard performance to get through."
She earned a 115.82 with Thursday's free skate, for a total event score of 179.93.
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Whether she will appear again on the international stage remains an open question. She made no commitments on Thursday night, but she did not vow to pursue a return to a future Games.
"I know in 2018 I got off the ice and I was like, 'Yes, I'm going to go for another four years,' and I'm proud to say I made it here, so that's such a great accomplishment," she said. "But I also think that I have to take a second and just think about what's realistic, especially in this sport where it's more challenging as you get older. So I definitely need some time to just reflect."
Feb. 17, 2022, 8:10 a.m. ET
The top finishers in this event might not get their medals for months.
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Kamila Valieva of Russia is expected to win the women's individual competition in under an hour from now. But if she succeeds, she will not receive a medal. Nor will any of her competitors.
Olympic officials, faced with perhaps the most fraught controversy at these Winter Games, said on Monday that they planned to withhold medals in any event in which Valieva, 15, places in the top three until after her doping case is resolved, perhaps months from now.
The International Olympic Committee said there would be no medal ceremony during the Games for the team event, which Valieva and her Russian teammates won, and none during the Games for the women's individual event if Valieva finishes in the top three.
Her win would be recorded with asterisk in Olympic record books, Mark Adams, a spokesman for the committee, said.
"There will be an asterisk against the results, because they will be preliminary obviously pending the investigation," he said Wednesday. "Would we prefer not to have all this going on? Absolutely."
It appears that the I.O.C. is holding out the possibility that Valieva could be stripped of medals and her competitors elevated to higher awards. But the committee did not make clear why it would not award medals to rival competitors in the interim.
It said it would conduct "dignified medal ceremonies once the case of Ms. Valieva has been concluded," a process that could take months.
If Valieva does not finish in the top three in the women's competition, the medals will be awarded as normal. But given her talents, that would be a surprise.
Feb. 17, 2022, 8:05 a.m. ET
Loena Hendrickx of Belgium enjoys the moment.
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A lot is made of the disappointments we witness at the Olympics, but each woman we've seen in this group has looked enormously pleased with herself. It may be hard for any of them to crack the top three, but it's nice to see them enjoying the moment instead of being weighed down with regret.
Loena Hendrickx of Belgium largely kept the positivity going, though her expressions suggested that she was keenly aware of a misstep or two. She ranks second going into the final group.
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Feb. 17, 2022, 7:59 a.m. ET
Alysa Liu has the most fun, and the most points.
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Nobody seems to have had more fun in this Olympic women's event than Alysa Liu of the United States. Nobody. She floated through her program, which she skated to Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D, and beamed with joy the entire time. She landed her triple axel but was downgraded by the judges, though she did land on one foot.
This is the way a 16-year-old should compete at the Olympics. Her score puts her in first place.
Feb. 17, 2022, 7:50 a.m. ET
Kim Ye-lim of South Korea moves into first place.
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The intensity and the strength of performances we're seeing has clearly ramped up. Kim Ye-lim pleased the contingent of fans from South Korea — one of the few countries to have even a small cheering section — with an impeccable routine, vaulting her into first place with a combined score of 202.63.
Feb. 17, 2022, 7:45 a.m. ET
What is a triple axel?
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It is almost certainly something that you should not try.
Even to skaters competing at the Olympic Games, the triple axel is often relegated to the realm of the aspirational: a jump, after a forward-facing takeoff, that involves three and a half rotations. (The axel is the only jump in which skaters leave the ice facing forward.)
It was only in 2018 that Mirai Nagasu became the first American woman to complete a triple axel at a Games; she was just the eighth woman to land one in competition, underscoring the rarity of the technique over the years.
But seven women penciled in tries for Tuesday's short program, including Kamila Valieva and Alysa Liu, a 16-year-old American skater who is competing at her first Olympics.
Mana Kawabe missed her triple axel attempt earlier on Thursday, but four other women will try one, including Liu, who is about to skate.
Feb. 17, 2022, 7:42 a.m. ET
Anastasiia Gubanova of Georgia earns a season's best.
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You could feel the pride Anastasiia Gubanova of Georgia had in her performance. The tears started barely a second after she was done, and she got a long, sustained hug just off the ice. Her immediate instincts were right. She scored 135.58, a season's best, and is now in second place behind Mariah Bell with a combined score of 200.98.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/02/17/sports/figure-skating-olympics
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