I believed I had heard and seen it all over my more than 30 years of covering Olympic figure skating, from Tonya-Nancy to the French judge, from Russian cheating to, well, more Russian cheating, most recently the Kamila Valieva affair at the 2022 Beijing Olympic Games.
Then, this past week, an unheard-of surprise emerged on the internet: Valieva’s new long programmed for the 2022–2023 season, which featured me. A soundbite from a CNN interview conducted a few hours after Valieva’s catastrophic breakdown during the women’s long programmed in Beijing in February really has my voice. Every day’s most important sports news, from NFL plays to college sports results.
At a recent Russian preview event for the upcoming skating season, Valieva, dressed solemnly in black, stands still on the ice as a combination of ominous music and a few words in Russian play throughout the arena. These words, which were mine, were followed by these in English: “It was unexpected, it was shocking…
At that point, Valieva begins to skate. Four minutes later, she finishes by pulling a black hood over her head as a creative flourish, recalling how she hurried by reporters in the Olympic mixed zone while concealing her face at the height of the doping scandal more than seven months prior.
The presentation appears to be an attempt to reflect on her experience at the Winter Olympics, when she was allowed to compete in the women’s event after testing positive for a prohibited substance in December and was the overwhelming favorite to win the gold medal.
After guiding Russia to the gold medal in the team competition earlier in the Games, Valieva, then 15 years old, faltered to a fourth-place finish in the women’s event as her narrative shook the Games. The team medal celebration had to be cancelled due to her positive drug test.
The Russian Anti-Doping Agency declared two weeks ago that the hearings on Valieva’s positive drug test had finally begun after an agonizingly long inquiry. In the team competition, the medals have still not been given out.
Additionally, given the current state of affairs and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Valieva’s new long programmed may only be used in a few international competitions. On CNN on February 17, 2022, Valieva and her crew only used a small amount of my remarks. Here are a few more examples of the cold treatment Valieva received from her coaches following a positive drug test and subpar ice performance: It was unexpected, surprising, and terrible, and you couldn’t help but feel like you were experiencing the outcomes of child abuse on that rink, the Olympic ice, the biggest stage in the world.
