Russian figure skate Kamila Valieva broke down in tears on the ice yesterday evening, after a disastrous routine left her out of the running for a second Olympic gold, The Sun reports.
The 15-year-old's Winter Games have been embroiled in controversy after it emerged that she failed a drug test on Christmas day.
Despite her positive doping test, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) ruled last week that the teenage star could continue to compete in the women's single skating competition, in which she was a favorite to win.
But an error-ridden routine in which she crashed twice on the ice in Beijing's Capital Indoor Stadium knocked Valieva's gold medal hopes and reduced her to tears.
The teenager - who wore a black and red costume for the event and danced to Bolero - finished fourth, with an overall score of 224.09, meaning she missed out on a podium finish. Her Russian teammates Anna Shcherbakova and Alexandra Trusova won gold and silver respectively, while Japan's Kaori Sakamoto took home bronze.
Valieva won't go home empty-handed, though, having helped her team to win gold in the joint event last week. However, she still had to be consoled by coaches and teammates after missing out on the podium.
The Sun reports that former US skater Ashley Wagner - who won bronze in the 2014 games - expressed sympathy for the teenager and hit out at the IOC for allowing her to compete.
"This is a moment where you genuinely have to say: that poor kid," she said, adding: "she should not have ever been put in this position. She shouldn’t have been out on that ice, she shouldn’t have been put in a position where she became the face of a problem bigger than her."
Wagner went on to say that "this just shows that these a children that are put in a position that is so wildly unhealthy and harmful to them. I’m sick to my stomach."
Valieva's case is one of the most controversial doping inquiries in Olympic history. Traces of trimetazidine - an antianginal drug banned because it has been shown to improve performance - were found in her urine in a December test. While the IOC cleared her to compete in Beijing, they have claimed that there is "an asterisk against the results because they will be preliminary – under further investigation”.
