MOSCOW, April 26. /TASS/. Russia’s figure skating teenage prodigy Kamila Valieva managed to achieve her outstanding results without the use of any banned substances or methods, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday.

"The whole country, as well as figure skating fans across the globe, rooted for Kamila [Valieva]," Putin said speaking at an awarding ceremony of Russia’s 2022 Beijing Olympic Games medalists.

"She managed to accumulate her talent, all of the most complicated figure skating elements, her plastique, beauty, the power and tenderness, as well as her hard work to bring this sport to the level of the true art."

"It is utterly impossible to achieve such perfection using unfair methods, with the help of additional substances and manipulations," the Russian president continued. "There is no place for such additional methods in the sport of figure skating and we all know it well and understand."

The Russian president also congratulated Valieva during today’s awarding ceremony with her birthday as she turned 16 on April 26.

Valieva’s suspected doping case

On February 14, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) turned down an appeal filed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the International Skating Union (ISU) against the decision of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) to lift a temporary suspension of Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva.

The International Testing Agency announced on February 11 that Valieva’s doping sample, collected on December 25, 2021, during the Russian Figure Skating Championships in St. Petersburg, returned a positive result for a banned substance, trimetazidine. This triggered the postponement of the awarding ceremony of the 2022 Olympic team competition, won by Russia.

RUSADA imposed a provisional suspension on Valieva on February 8, but the Russian athlete submitted an appeal and it was satisfied the following day. The previous decision on the provisional suspension was cancelled by the RUSADA Disciplinary Committee.

However, the ISU, IOC and WADA filed their appeals later with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in order to overturn the previous decision of the RUSADA Disciplinary Committee.