Tenderness with a steel character: Kamila Valieva turns 17

The number of news, speculations, rumors surrounding Kamila Valieva in the last year has probably exceeded a thousand. The main thing is the doping scandal that unfolded around the young figure skater. The Beijing Olympics could have been Camila's finest hour (and in terms of sports results, she showed the highest marks), but instead of medals and triumph, the main competitions of the planet gave her condemnation and suspicion. But, in spite of everything, the skater continues to go on the ice, win domestic competitions and perform her best jumps.

Kamila Valieva is one of the stars of the Eteri Tutberidze group. She moved to the Sambo-70 sports school in the summer of 2018 and immediately shone - she brightly showed herself at junior international starts and won the final of the Junior Grand Prix in Turin even without ultra-c elements, then took gold at the Russian championship and the world championship .

In the 2020/21 season, she made her debut at adult competitions in Russia, a year later - on the international arena. The first adult season was the most difficult for young Valieva in her career.

At the Winter Olympics in Beijing, she made a huge contribution to the gold medal of the Russian team in the team competition. By winning both programs, she became the first figure skater from Europe to complete a triple Axel at the Olympics. In personal rentals, Valieva showed an excellent short program, but according to the results she became only fourth - the stress associated with the doping scandal that flared up around the figure skater probably affected. During the Games, it became known that Valieva passed a positive doping test in December 2021 at the Russian Championship. Because of this, the figure skater could not be allowed to participate in the free program at all. However, CAS denied all appeals. Camila took to the ice. Yes, it did not bring her an award. But then she showed the whole world that she was not ready to give up.

“I watched the Olympic free program three times on purpose, with tears in my eyes. I looked, because I needed to do this in order to close the gestalt - how it looked from the outside and what I had inside. And I looked, and I just let go - well, it already happened, that's all. Well, stop thinking about it, ”she said in a recent interview with Maxim Trankov. She also emphasized that she wanted to change the situation - she felt a lot of stress due to the fact that she had increased attention from the media, and athletes from other teams gave the skater not the most pleasant looks.

Now Kamila Valieva is the only one of the single skaters who participated in the Games in Beijing who continues to compete. This season, the figure skater has collected a significant collection of awards: she won the Grand Prix stages twice, took silver at the Russian Championship and in the final of the National Grand Prix, won the first jumping tournament, performed two of the brightest demonstration numbers - in the image of Wednesday from the series of the same name and a shaman at the tournament show programs.

Valieva is not afraid to be different and add new elements to her programs, try on new images. A small fragile girl with a steel rod inside has not yet shown everything she can in figure skating, and is not going to finish with the sport.