STANISLAV POZDNYAKOV

Russia’s trio of teenage figure skating stars each enter an uncertain future after what may be the most dramatic night in their sport's history.

She is an innocent victim of the Olympics in China,” journalist Yekaterina Avdonina wrote in an op-ed for Championat, one of Russia’s leading sports outlets, referring to the potential carelessness of Valieva’s coaches. Advertisement“It will be very difficult to clear the skater’s reputation even if she is miraculously acquitted,” Avdonina added. It isn’t clear why the test results were not reported for weeks, and Russian officials have seized upon that delay. The Kremlin spokesman weighed in on the scandal, signaling that Valieva has the backing of Russian leadership. Russian athletes have not been able to perform in international competitions under their country’s flag and anthem in recent years because of a state-run doping program used during the 2014 Sochi Winter Games.

President of the Russian Olympic Committee Stanislav Pozdnyakov attends a news conference in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, Dec. 17, 2020. “It is a victory for Russia,” Russian anti-doping agency acting CEO Mikhail Bukhanov said. The most important part of the ruling, according to Russian Olympic Committee president Stanislav Pozdnyakov, was the lack of any “extra criteria” for eligibility. “Clean Russian athletes can take part in the Olympics without any restrictions and do that on a team formed by the national Olympic committee,” Pozdnyakov said. When the “Olympic Athletes from Russia” team competed at the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, it was only after the International Olympic Committee had vetted the athletes for possible connections to doping at the Sochi Games four years earlier.