Valiyeva's return after a doping ban: transfer of the year on the ice

T he move from Kamila Waliyeva to a new team is the biggest transfer of this winter. The Russian news portal Sport Express writes about the figure skater's return to her former coach Eteri Tutberidze like the move of an expensive football star. The news is indeed quite impressive, even if it certainly doesn't involve three-digit million amounts like in the big football business. The trainer and her then-young protégé were the big topic of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.

The then 15-year-old Valiyeva was initially admired for her short program, the best the world had seen up to that point. When it became known during the games that she had tested positive for a substance banned as a doping agent at an earlier competition, she became a political issue at the games.

Some wanted to immediately remove her from the competition as a doping offender. Others saw her as the child who had fallen victim to a sports system that consumed people. As a result, the entire country was plastered with Valiyeva posters and a cult was organized in her support.

Meanwhile, the competitions continued in Beijing – with Valiyeva. During the final freestyle in the individual competition, the athlete fell several times and became a tragic figure in the games, having to fail because she was unable to cope with all the pressure that had built up around her. In the end, her coach received a highly official insult from Thomas Bach, the then President of the International Olympic Committee, who, like everyone else in Beijing, had noticed the icy coldness with which Eteri Tutberidze treated her athlete, who had literally fallen, after the free program.

Soon after, Valiyeva's career was officially put on hold. She was banned for four years for doping. She has been preparing for her comeback to competitive sports since 2025 in coach Svetlana Sokolowskaja's team. In the beginning of the winter sports season, Waliyeva should also appear in international competitions again. To do this, she applied for status as a “neutral athlete”.

Since Russia's attack on Ukraine, Russian athletes have only been allowed to compete internationally if they have neither made propaganda for the war nor belong to any military units. The International Skating Union ISU granted her this status. Shortly afterwards she reversed her decision. Once again it looks as if everything that happens around Valiyeva is becoming a political issue.

Valiyeva did not initially appeal against this decision. And yet it seems to continue to fight for neutral status. Her decision to leave Sokolowskaya's training group certainly suggests that. Their team was part of CSKA, the army sports club in Moscow, until 2023 and was therefore anything but neutral.

In addition, Sokolovskaya's protégés train in the Nawka Arena, which was built in 2025. It is named after Tatjana Nawka, the ice dancing Olympic champion in Turin in 2006. She organizes lucrative shows on the ice for those who perform and is the head of a figure skating academy, to which Sokolowskaya's training group also belongs. Because of her close ties to the Kremlin - Nawka is the wife of Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov - she is on sanctions lists by the USA and the European Union.

Valiyeva has now freed herself from this environment. She is not allowed to take part in international competitions for the time being. However, it can sometimes be seen in arenas around the world. At the beginning of October she skated in an ice show in Mexico City.