Olympic diving champion and journalist Elena Vaitsekhovskaya called figure skater Kamila Valieva the most dramatic figure of the Olympic season, and also expressed the opinion that at present, coach Eteri Tutberidze will not be able to refuse to work with her.

Valieva, who turned 16 in April, took part in the team competition at the Beijing Games in February, where the Russians won the gold medal. The day after the free program of the team tournament, it became known that Valieva’s doping test, taken at the Russian Championships in December, contained the banned drug trimetazidine. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) allowed Valieva to the singles competition, where she finished fourth. The investigation into this case is still ongoing.

– I’ll be captain Obviousness and write that Kamila Valieva is the most dramatic figure of the Olympic season. If she, after two absolutely amazing performances in Beijing, won an individual tournament, the Games would have turned into a drama for someone else (and such a victory would certainly have eclipsed Trusova’s five quads), and Camila herself would have become a heroine and a legend.

But she didn’t win. And all the current remarks in the direction of the figure skater that she is an Olympic champion even without a personal victory, this is such a somewhat premature and rather insidious game: the title, until the final verdict, seems to be hanging on a thread that can break at any moment. And Camila herself will not be at all to blame for this, despite any voiced versions – my personal opinion.

That is why I really want her to stay. To skate until the next Games and skate great. She has everything for this, and I didn’t exaggerate at all, saying in a podcast that no other figure skater in the world has such arms, such legs, muscle strength, sharpness, eyes, intelligence, expressiveness … Valieva in this regard is like a chest, filled with untold riches. The lid was opened and everyone was breathless.

But the current Valieva is also a big quest for her own coach. She grew up and very (after everything experienced) matured. It seems to me that it will no longer be possible to drive it into the standard framework of the principles adopted at school. She will have to be reckoned with.

In other words, it is on this material that Eteri Tutberidze will have to prove that she can work for a long time with adult, accomplished athletes. This is the most difficult task.

It is impossible to refuse to work with Valieva, no matter how much she has grown and lost her previous skills, if this suddenly happens during the offseason. Because in this case, the blame for everything that happened to the athlete, in the view of so many people, will fall on the shoulders of the coach. And for doping, and for two starts in the team, and for many other things.

It seems to me that Tutberidze understands all this much better than anyone else: in terms of the profession and all its nuances, she is a genius (I probably won’t mention the word “criminal”, launched into use by Dave Leese). In the end, five years ago, she herself said a wonderful phrase: “I always tell athletes: each of you has different pencils. And you need to draw with the colors that you have.”

Well, then it’s time to remember Bulat Okudzhava: “You draw, you draw, you will be credited…” Vaitsekhovskaya wrote in her Telegram channel.