Kamila Valieva was a vision in shades of lavender, her bedazzled skirt fluttering as she floated above the ice at Capital Indoor Stadium.
Except for an awkward landing on her opening triple axel jump, the 15-year-old Russian was poised and powerful as she performed her short program Tuesday. She earned 82.16 points, outpacing compatriot Anna Shcherbakova and Kaori Sakomoto of Japan to rank first — but with a big, fat, blinking neon asterisk attached to the result.
On Dec. 25, Valieva tested positive for a banned substance — a medication that's used to treat heart ailments and is classified as a stimulant — but she competed in the European championships and in the team event in the Beijing Games before the result arrived from a lab in Sweden. Conveniently, it turned up after the Russian Olympic Committee athletes had won gold. She was provisionally suspended by the Russian Anti-Doping Agency — for one whole day.
