On April 26, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that teenage figure skater Kamila Valieva’s performances could not have been accomplished with the help of any prohibited substance. “Through her work, she brought the sport to the level of a real form of art,” Putin said Valieva at a televised awards ceremony at the Kremlin for medallists from the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. “Such perfection cannot be achieved dishonestly with the help of additional substances, manipulations. We very well know that these additional substances are not needed in figure skating.”
