WASHINGTON — In a shocking upset to end her time at the Olympics, Kamila Valieva placed fourth after several missteps during her the free skate portion of the women’s short program, meaning that there will be a medal ceremony for the event.
Russia’s Valieva was the overwhelming favorite to win gold in the competition.
But because she is still at the center of a doping scandal after testing positive in December for a banned heart medicine, the International Olympic Committee decided that if she were to win, there would be no medal or flower ceremony for the top skaters.
But that appears to not be how the figure skating event will end.
Anna Shcherbakova won a stunning gold medal in women’s figure skating with a near-flawless free skate. But the gold medalist wasn’t happy by the end of the night. In the minutes after the competition ended, she was left alone and visibly sad while her team and the world processed Valieva’s fall from grace.
Valieva skated to “Bolero” on Thursday night, coming up about ten points short of medaling after her performance collapsed with several errors.
Valieva, 15, put a jolt into the Beijing Games when she landed the first quadruple jumps by a woman at the Olympics and helped the Russians win the gold medal in the team event.
The teen was in first place heading into the free skate, after she topped the leaderboard in the short program Tuesday.
After she performed — last out of 25 skaters because of her standing going into the event — Valieva threw her arms up in resignation as she came off the ice.
Her coach appeared to be critiquing the performance even as she put her arm around Valieva’s shoulder and led her to the bench. Valieva was left sobbing in the kiss-and-cry area after her scores were read.
The NBC commentators for the event were unusually vocal with criticism of the decision to allow her to compete at all in the event.
“The people around her should have kept her away from this and shielded her from this, kept her from competing here,” Johnny Weir said.
Russian teammate Alexandra Trusova leaped to silver with her quad-packed program while Japan’s Kaori Sakamoto held onto the bronze medal.
In the aftermath of the free skate, Trusova cried as well, telling coaches “I’m not going, I’m not going.”
Valieva tested positive for a banned heart medication at the Russian championships in December. But the result wasn’t announced until last week, shortly after the team event.
She was cleared to compete earlier this week by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which ruled among other things that she had protected status as a minor and would suffer “irreparable harm” if she was not allowed to perform. The court did not rule on the full scope of the case, leaving that to a more comprehensive investigation later.
“There will be an asterisk against the results, because they will be preliminary obviously pending the investigation,” IOC spokesman Mark Adams said. “Would we prefer not to have all this going on? Absolutely.”
Moments after Valieva walked off, workers began setting up for a flower ceremony that the International Olympic Committee said would not take place if she was on the podium. Later, there would also be a medal ceremony that likewise would not have occurred until after the full investigation into Valieva’s positive test for a banned substance was transpiring.