Kamila Valieva is a teenage Russian figure skater who has recently found herself at the centre of a whirlwind of controversy. A nine-time world-record breaker, former junior world champion and junior grand prix winner, she is the current Russian national champion, won gold at the 2022 European Championships in Tallinn, Finland, and also helped Russia to win the team gold medal at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing after becoming the first-ever female to land a quadruple jump in an Olympic competition. However, she has spent much of 2022 at the centre of a prolonged and complex investigation by the World Anti-Doping Agency, which has been slowed down because of backlogs apparently caused by the pandemic. Her home country’s current political situation has not helped matters either. But at the same time, it should be remembvered that Valieva is a still a school-aged teenager who has suffered incredible media pressure, speculation, and attention.

Valieva was Kazan, Russia, in April 2006 and began skating when she was just three years old. When she was six, she moved more than 500 miles west, to Moscow, so that she could train. She first came to prominence during the 2018/19 season thanks to her beautiful routine set to Arvo Part’s haunting classical piano piece ‘Spiegel im Spiegel’. The routine was inspired by a Picasso painting and caused such a reaction that the painter’s granddaughter invited Valieva to Paris. The following season, she became junior world champion.

Sadly, Valieva’s incredible talent and achievements have been somewhat overshadowed by the media madness surrounding her, but hopefully, she can soon return to the rink and wow us all again with her natural brilliance.