Teen Russian figure skater with controversial coach makes Winter Olympics debut

The Milan and Cortina Olympics has had its first glimpse of Adeliia Petrosian, the leading Russian figure skater with the controversial coach who has been allowed to compete in the women’s singles competition at the Assago Arena.

Clad in a sparkling red jacket and skating to a Michael Jackson medley that including ‘Earth Song’ and ‘They Don’t Care About Us’, Petrosian delivered a career best score of 72.89 for her short program that is likely to leave her on the fringe of medal contention in Thursday’s concluding free skate.

The Beijing Games marks Petrosian’s second senior competition outside her home country. A three-time national champion who skates under the sobriquet ‘Miss Mystery’, she won the Skate to Milano event in China last year.

In a rare interview with international media in 2024, Petrosian spoke of growing up dreaming of hairdressing and selling vegetables, and her love for her Yorkshire terrier, Almochka.

But the 18-year-old’s appearance at the Games is not without contention. She was invited to compete only after being judged not to have supported her country’s war on Ukraine, nor to have any links with Russia’s military or security services.

More pertinently, Petrosian trains at Sambo 70 in Moscow, the club that nurtured Kamila Valieva, who dramatically fell to earth during the 2022 Olympics under the weight of an initial positive drugs test, and was subsequently disqualified.

The club is run by Eteri Tutberidze, the coach who was excoriated by the then International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach in Beijing for her part in Valieva’s dramatic demise.

At an extraordinary press conference, Bach said he was “disturbed” by Valieva’s error-strewn performance, and criticised the “tremendous coldness”