BEIJING — The Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva’s performance in the women’s figure skating event this week was supposed to be a highlight of the Beijing Games.
As the sport’s breakout star here, she was expected to land quadruple jump after quadruple jump, just a week after the team event, where she became the first woman to land one at the Olympics. And Valieva, 15, would land those jumps with ease, like a bird floating onto a tree branch.
After it was made public last week that she tested positive for a banned drug, the question now is whether she can perform the way she always does, and that’s with near perfection, amid a doping scandal that nearly cost her the right to compete here.