BEIJING — After a week of turmoil rocking the Beijing Games, Kamila Valieva, Russia’s figure skating star, showed up at the Olympic rink on Thursday facing a single, heavy expectation: to win.
Gone was the 15-year-old clutching a pastel stuffed rabbit or giggling with her Russian teammates. In a mostly black costume with flame-red gloves that popped at the end of her long arms, she started off her performance to Ravel’s “Bolero” as if not a second of a doping dispute at the Games had fazed her, though she has been at the searing center of it.
The Russians came into the Games expected to sweep the medals in women’s singles and continue the country’s recent domination of the sport.