“This is immense mental stress” – IOC president Thomas Bach on 15-year-old Kamila Valieva’s team

“This is immense mental stress” – IOC president Thomas Bach on 15-year-old Kamila Valieva’s team

Thomas Bach and Kamila Valieva

Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva on Thursday slipped and fell during her free skate en route to a fourth-place finish in women’s single skating. Hence, she failed to capture what would’ve been her second presumptive gold medal at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. 

Meanwhile, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach did not see any failure on the ice. Instead, he saw it in the “tremendous coldness” of her entourage toward the teenage Russian skater, who is also embroiled in a doping controversy and has overwhelmed the competition’s focus. 

“I must say I was very, very disturbed yesterday when I watched the competition on TV,” Bach told the NY Post during an interview. “First in her performance, how high the pressure on her must have been. … In particular for a girl of 15 years old. To see her there struggling on the ice, seeing how she tries to compose herself again, how then she tries to finish her program, you could in every movement in the body language, you could feel that this is immense mental stress and maybe she would have preferred just to leave the ice and try to leave this story behind her.”

“Was chilling to see this”

Kamila Valieva
Kamila Valieva

The IOC leader mentioned that harsh to see the ROC skater compete in such a demanding situation rather than being comforted and helped out.

“But this was not all, when I afterwards saw how she was received by her closest entourage with what appeared to be a tremendous coldness, it was chilling to see this, rather than giving her comfort, rather than try to help her,” he added.

Earlier, Valieva had tested positive for the banned substance trimetazidine from a sample taken in December 2021. But the Russian Anti-Doping Agency claimed they did not receive the positive test until last week at the Games.

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