It was “chilling” to see the “cold” way distraught Kamila Valieva was treated by her Russian coach after falls in her figure skating routine at Beijing 2022, says International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach.‘
There was no hug and no comfort for the 15-year-old from coach Eteri Tutberidze when she immediately came off the ice, instead she was asked “why did you stop fighting?”
“When I saw how she was received by her closest entourage with what appeared to be a tremendous coldness, it was chilling to see this, rather than giving her comfort, rather than to try to help her,” said Bach.
Tutberidze, whose training methods were already under the spotlight, did put her arm around the young Russian while she waited for her score. But moments before that had demanded to know: “Why did you let it go? Explain it to me, why?”
Bach said he was “very, very disturbed” by what he had seen when watching the competition on television.
“All of this does not give me much confidence in this closest entourage of Kamila, neither with regard to what happened in the past, nor as far as it concerns the future,” he added.
“How to deal, how to address, how to treat a minor athlete at the age of 15 under such an obvious mental stress.”