After IOC president Thomas Bach expressed his concern for how Kamila Valieva’s coach reacted to the Russian figure skater’s disappointing free skate, Russia responded.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov held a press conference Friday where he defended the ROC’s coaching techniques for all of its winter sports.
"Thomas Bach is a very authoritative person in the sports world. Of course we respect his opinion, but we do not necessarily agree with him," Peskov said, via Reuters’ Karolos Grohmann. "He doesn’t like the harshness of our coaches, but everybody knows that the harshness of a coach in high-level sport is key for their athletes to achieve victories. And we are seeing that the athletes are achieving victories. So let’s be proud of our winners, congratulate our medallists. Valieva was fourth but in high-level sport, the strongest wins.”
