Kamila Valieva’s return to competition began quietly on Sunday, with the former Olympic prodigy finishing sixth in the semi-finals of the Russian Jumping Championships in her first event since completing a four-year doping ban.
The 19-year-old struggled with her jumps, stumbling on the landing of her opening quadruple toe loop, falling on her second attempt, and ending with an untidy double flip–triple Salchow combination.
The event differs from traditional figure skating competitions, with skaters given 90 seconds to perform a sequence of jumps to generic background music. Only the top three advanced to the final.
Nearly four years after her role in a doping scandal that overshadowed the 2022 Beijing Olympics, Valieva returned to competition on Saturday with a stronger showing in the quarter-finals, landing a clean quadruple toe loop — a jump achieved by only a handful of female skaters.
Despite her error-filled performance on Sunday, supporters unfurled banners bearing her name and threw dozens of stuffed toys onto the ice after her skate.
Valieva remains ineligible for the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics, which begin on Friday. Three-time Russian national champion Adeliia Petrosian will compete as an Individual Neutral Athlete and is considered one of the favourites for the women’s title.
Valieva was just 15 when she became the focus of international controversy at the 2022 Olympics after a sample taken two months earlier tested positive for the banned substance trimetazidine. The result surfaced after she helped Russia win gold in the team event, a medal from which the country was later disqualified, promoting the United States to first place.
Competing under intense scrutiny, Valieva finished fourth in the women’s event and was publicly criticised by her coach, Eteri Tutberidze.
Following the scandal, the minimum age for Olympic figure skaters was raised to 17.