Beijing Winter Olympics 2022 spotlight: Kamila Valieva evokes Torvill and Dean and takes Bolero to a new level

Russian teenager Kamila Valieva may or may not have any idea about Britain’s association with figure skating and Bolero — but it may help make her a star to UK audiences at the Winter Olympics in Beijing. At the age of just 15, she is the favourite to win gold having stunned recently at the figure skating European Championships, when she took the free skate title by an astonishing 22 points. Ad/> Valieva did that to Maurice Ravel’s Bolero, which was famously what Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean skated to on their way to ice dancing gold at the Sarajevo Games in 1984 — but this teenager is taking that music to a whole different level.

Beijing 2022'A little alternative'- skating star Fear on bringing Disney and classic rock to the Olympics26/01/2022 AT 17:30 https://www.instagram.com/tv/CZMjwBih2lw/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link The dominant winning score in Tallinn recently is all the more remarkable given she did it after falling while attempting a triple axel. Three impeccable quadruple jumps meant she finished ahead of teammates Anna Shcherbakova and Alexandra Trusova. There was a world record to break too — her own in fact.

A score of 90.45 in the short programme was more than three points higher than the best she had set in November. Beijing 2022 Olympic Games: Schedule, big names, key events and more Torvill and Dean's brilliant Bolero firing figure skater Gibson to Olympic big time Valieva only made her senior international debut last year but she is already a junior world champion from 2020. /> The biggest competition she faces is probably from her own team-mates.