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Kamila Valieva falls during the women’s free skate program on Thursday.Credit:AP

She fell four times in a performance that felt like the weight of global expectation was bearing down on her. It dragged her back to the ice every time she rose and regained her composure,leaving her alone – a child in the middle of an empty rink – attempting the most complex tricks ever seen,chasing a gold medal that could later have been stripped from her.

The teenager had stunned the field in her short program on Tuesday,racing clear of her rivals to top the rankings,but it raised immediate questions about whether a banned substance improved her performance. In the end,she could not sustain the form that had brought her both global celebrity and notoriety.

Valieva finished in fourth place after the final free skate program,nine points behind her nearest rival,Kaori Sakamoto of Japan. Valieva’s teammate Anna Shcherbakova won gold and fellow Russian Alexandra Trusova silver.

Shcherbakova completed quadruple jumps that until Thursday only Valieva had performed at an Olympics. Had Valieva won a medal,it would have been a Russian clean sweep,but there would have been no ceremony in Beijing. As it was,her teammates took to the podium while Valieva left the Capital Indoor Stadium in tears.

Anna Shcherbakova en route to the gold medal in the women’s free skating.Credit:Getty Images

Valieva moved from the small Russian city of Kazan as a child to join Shcherbakova and Trusova at the Sambo 70 club in Moscow. All three are coached by Eteri Tutberidze,Sergei Dudakov and Daniil Gleikhengauz.

Valieva tested positive for the stamina-enhancing drug trimetazidine in December,but the result was not released by the Russian Anti-Doping Agency until after Valieva had started her Olympic campaign by winning gold in the team event last week.

The women’s singles gold would have been Valieva’s second of the Games. Both her team and individual effort will now be put under months of scrutiny to decide if her team win still stands amid a flurry of protests – including from the US,Canadian and British Olympic committees – against the Russian team’s actions.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled on Monday that Valieva could continue competing at the Games because as she is aged under 16,she is a “protected person” and that banning her from continuing her campaign would cause “irreparable damage” to the young Russian star.

Valieva told the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that she had mistakenly come into contact with her grandfather’s heart medication,which contains the banned trimetazidine.

That testimony was complicated further by revelations on Thursday that Valieva had also been taking hypoxen and L-carnitine – two legal substances that improve blood flow. However,when combined with the banned trimetazidine,the drugs create the appearance of an athlete appearing to artificially improve their performance,according to the US Anti-Doping Agency.

US skater Alysa Liu,who finished in seventh,said speculation about Valieva’s drug tests had dominated talk behind the scenes in the lead up to the free skate final on Thursday.

“It’s the biggest thing that has happened here so far,” she said. “Every time something new happens,we tell each other.”

Older skaters,including the American Mariah Bell and the UK’s Nathasha McKay,have been sharp in their criticism of what they see as an uneven playing field driven by a process that has been allowed to drag on too long,punishes clean athletes and takes advantage of young skaters.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has yet to test Valieva’s B sample,the second urine test taken at the same time as the initial positive result.

“We all need to follow due process,” IOC spokesperson Mark Adams said on Thursday. “This person has not even had their B sample opened. The case is not even finished yet.”

WADA banned Russia in 2019 from international sport for years of systemic state-sanctioned doping,but athletes have been allowed to continue competing under the Russian Olympic Committee flag.

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