Surrounded by Controversy, Kamila Valieva Takes the Lead

“I don’t know what I expected, but I imagined it would be somehow different,” she said. “After I fell off the axel jump, the rest I did easily.”

After her performance, Trusova sat stone-faced and frozen in the area where skaters wait for their scores, as if it hadn’t even registered that she could score 74.60 points and sit just off the medals stand as the women go into the free skate.

Shcherbakova, the reigning world champion, didn’t want to talk about medals, saying, “It’s early to speak about the medals. It’s too early for the medals.” But she is in position, certainly, to win one after landing her double axel and three triple jumps, and checking off skill after skill with determination.

“I realized how important this skate was and I tried to pay attention to every detail,” she said.

When asked about Valieva and the doping situation, Shcherbakova said she wouldn’t comment on it. Valieva did not make herself available to reporters, either, walking past them and then skipping the news conference after the event.

Sakamoto admitted that there were times when she wondered what was going to happen with the Valieva affair, but as with most skaters here she needed to try to block it out if she was going to skate her best.

“I’m not really focusing on those matters,” she said. “I need to focus on me, on my game.”

Because of Valieva, a medal ceremony for the women’s event may not even take place.

If Valieva goes on to win or place in the top three in this event, there will be no medal ceremony for any of the medalists — not even a ceremony where they are awarded stuffed Olympic panda mascots — because her doping case remains under investigation. Already, medals for the team event Russia won last week, when it beat the United States and Japan, are on hold until her case is resolved.