After her Olympic tragedy, Kamila Valieva left Beijing and landed in Moscow without speaking to the press

Russian Olympic Committee figure skater Kamila Valieva did not speak to the mass of reporters waiting for her at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport on her return from the Beijing Winter Olympics.

Until investigations into her and her entourage are completed, the specter of the doping scandal will continue to haunt the 15-year-old Russian teenager.

According to the Russian press, another 21 athletes and eight members of the coaching staff traveled on the same flight this Friday.

Valieva’s return coincided with statements by the Russian sports minister, Oleg Matytsin, in which he requested “international support” for the recovery of the young athlete.

“I call on everyone to give support to Kamila,” Matytsin told reporters in Yekaterinburg, some 1,800 km from Moscow.

“First of all, to help her get back on her feet and show her that she is the best figure skater in the world today. This is an appeal addressed not only to the Russian sports society, but to the world sports society as a whole,” the official said, according to TASS.

During a press conference on Thursday, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach also urged to preserve the mental health of the athlete, after strong criticism of Valieva’s entourage for the treatment he was able to observe towards her. The skating star made several mistakes during the individual competition, apparently as a result of the pressure she has had to face in the Games.

Valieva, the big favorite for the gold medal on ice, was relegated to fourth place by her two Russian Olympic Committee teammates, Anna Shcherbakova and Alexandra Trusova who won the gold and silver medal respectively, and Japan’s Kaori Sakamoto who took the bronze.

Bach, who said he had seen the free skating competition on television, described the treatment of Valieva’s environment at the end of her performance as “tremendous coldness.” “Instead of giving her comfort, instead of trying to help her, you could feel this chilling atmosphere, this distance,” Bach said.

Valieva flopped after taking first place in the short program previously. Her coach Eteri Tutberidze and the rest of the environment will be investigated for a positive test for a heart drug before the Olympics.

Also on Friday, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) accused the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) Panel of ignoring the world anti-doping code when it upheld the Russian anti-doping authorities’ decision to lift Valieva’s provisional suspension.

On February 14, the CAS rejected appeals filed by the IOC, WADA and the International Skating Union (ISU) against that decision made by the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA), after the skater had failed a drug test during the Russian national championships last December.

The CAS released a lengthy argument for why a panel cleared Valieva to compete in the individual tournament, criticized the lengthy time it took for a WADA-accredited laboratory in Stockholm to return sample results, and concurred with the possibility the athlete may have ingested a contaminated product.

In its statement, WADA expresses the reasoning of the sports justice body regarding the Valieva case, issued on Thursday, violates the criteria to lift a mandatory provisional suspension.

“The reasoned award confirms the Court of Arbitration for Sport Panel decided to disregard the clear and unequivocal terms of the 2021 World Anti-Doping Code regarding the criteria for lifting a mandatory provisional suspension,” the statement said.

“In effect, by making this award, the CAS Panel has rewritten the Code to say that mandatory provisional suspensions for ‘protected persons’ will now be considered optional provisional suspensions,” according to the AMA.

“This is not what the Code says, it is not what the Code’s drafters intended, and it was never proposed by any of WADA’s stakeholders during the three rounds of Code consultation.”

“This rewrite of the Code, which would ostensibly allow ‘protected persons’ to continue to compete after testing positive for unspecified substances without any clarification of the circumstances, risks undermining the integrity of sporting competition and the confidence of athletes in the sport. that they are competing on equal terms,” the statement added.

WADA said this position “sets a dangerous precedent” that it hopes will be corrected by future panels of the sports justice body.

WADA also reiterated RUSADA’s responsibility for the delay in the result of the doping sample as it did not mark it as a priority to the Stockholm laboratory.

The Russian institution replied the samples were delivered to the laboratory in time so that the analysis could be carried out within the standard time limits.

The IOC, WADA and ISU tried, in vain, to have Valieva’s provisional ban upheld.

Bach said drastic measures will be taken if irregularities are discovered after investigations have been launched.