photo = Yonhap News
Russian President Vladimir Putin encouraged his country’s figure skater Camilla Balieva (16), who caused a doping scandal at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, saying, “I have upgraded figure skating from sports to a true art.”
According to the Associated Press and Reuters on the 26th (local time), President Putin made the remarks at a ceremony to encourage medalists for this year’s Winter Olympics held at the Kremlin in Moscow on the same day.
He said, “This perfect state cannot be achieved through manipulation or fraud, such as with the help of ‘extra drugs’.” He used the term ‘extra substance’ instead of prohibited substances.
“It’s a great honor for me,” said Baliyeva, who smiled brightly with a bouquet of flowers next to Putin on that day.
Balieva, who was selected as the winner of the women’s singles division at the Winter Olympics held last winter, was embroiled in a scandal when a prohibited substance was detected in a doping sample collected during the competition in December last year. It stopped. Instead, she won her gold medal in the team event.
By Han Kyung-woo, reporter at Hankyung.com case@hankyung.com
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