Allowing Valieva to compete ruins the competition

Figure skating is a beautiful sport and it takes a lot of talent and work to be good at it. It’s the same as any sport at the Olympics. Years and years of practice and hard work leads up to performing at the world or even national level. 

It’s certainly something to be proud of. 

Until it isn’t.

When athletes start using performance enhancing drugs the entire competition suffers. Performance enhancing drugs allow athletes to cut corners and make the playing field uneven. When an athlete’s talent comes from a bottle and not hard work it makes the entire competition less interesting. 

In 2014, Russia was banned from the Olympics due to athletes being encouraged to take performance enhancing drugs to help them medal. This ban wasn’t supposed to last very long, but has been continually renewed since then. 

The Olympics is all about seeing the best athletes compete against each other. But they didn’t want to just shut out good athletes because they’re from Russia and might be doping. So, the Russian Olympic Committee (R.O.C.) was made and ‘neutral’ athletes were allowed to compete. 

That seemed like a pretty good idea. It got rid of the athletes that were known for doping and allowed athletes that weren’t to compete fairly. A factor that was overlooked was the Russian coaches. There were far less coaches penalized than the Russian athletes. 

I believe that overlooking a coach’s influence on athletes led to the current issues women’s figure skating is facing. Kamila Valieva, a 15-year-old figure skater, is amazing. Watching her skate looks effortless and graceful. Her tricks are impressive but her presence on the ice is what makes her really stand out. No performance enhancing drugs were needed for her grace on skates. 

She probably would have won gold without performance enhancing drugs. Everyone would have watched in awe and cheered for her. Now she will win with no ceremony and her competitors will place after her knowing that they are skating in a losing race. 

Valieva will continue to compete at the Olympics even though she tested positive for three different drugs. She claims she came in contact with one of the drugs due to sharing a drink with her grandfather. However, the likelihood of having enough of the drug in her system to test positive for it just from sharing a drink with her grandfather is extremely low. 

Valieva is allowed to compete because of her age. The Olympic rules say minors are anyone that are less than 16 years old at the Olympics. So although she tested positive, the responsibility for the positive results don’t fall on Kamila they fall onto her coach, Eteri Tutberidze. 

Tutberidze is known for her extreme methods of training and most of her skaters quit or burnout by the time they are in their teens. She admitted to only letting a skater eat powdered food when they needed to lose weight. With her harsh methods the Olympic committee finds it fit to place the suspicions on her. 

And I think they’re right. Valieva may have taken them willingly, but I doubt she thought of it on her own. She needed to deal with her harsh methods and be the star she thought she was supposed to do. 

Unfortunately, it comes at the cost of the other athletes, who now must compete knowing it’s unfair and that if they and Valieva place none of them will receive a medals ceremony. Not only is the Russian team getting away with doping again they are depriving other athletes of a real Olympic experience.