Australian team boss sends warning over ‘chilling’ Kamila Valieva treatment at Winter Olympics

Australian Olympic team chef de mission Geoff Lipshut has joined the wide condemnation of the treatment of Russian teenage figure skater Kamila Valieva.

Lipshut said it was in stark contrast to the Australian team’s handling of their athletes at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics.

Watch Russian skater Kamila Valieva’s Winter Olympics capitulation in the video above

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Lipshut also says the nation’s peak figure skating body need to be “very careful” about ensuring Russians who work with Australian athletes are the “right coaches”.

IOC president Thomas Bach said it was “chilling” to see the coldness between Russian skater Kamila Valieva and her entourage after Thursday’s free skate.

Valieva, just 15, finished fourth after a number of uncharacteristic stumbles and left the ice in tears only to be berated by her infamous coach Eteri Tutberidze.

“All of this does not give me much confidence in this closest entourage of Kamila, neither with regard to what happened in the past, nor as far as it concerns the future,” Bach said.

“How to deal, how to address, how to treat a minor athlete at the age of 15 under such an obvious mental stress. I am very concerned.”

Lipshut said the way Australia dealt with an athlete’s disappointment was very different.

Aerial skiers Laura Peel and Danielle Scott, as well as male athletes Matt Graham and Jarryd Hughes, were literally embraced by team officials when they fell short of their own medal expectations.

“The way we have consoled our athletes who haven’t met their performance expectations is a very different experience than to that of that young figure skater,” Lipshut said from Zhangjiakou on Saturday.

“The