Tarasova said that if she were Tutberidze, she would have admitted her guilt in the Valieva case.

Honored coach of the USSR in figure skating Tatyana Tarasova told that if she had been coach Eteri Tutberidze, she would have admitted guilt in the figure skater’s case Kamila Valieva to remove responsibility for this from the child.

Earlier on Wednesday, Tutberidze released a statement on her social media in which she questioned the competence of the lawyers who represented Valieva’s interests at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). On Monday, the CAS suspended Valieva for four years for violating anti-doping rules. The court release noted that the skater was unable to provide convincing evidence that the violation was unintentional. The disqualification period begins on December 25, 2021. The International Skating Union (ISU) announced that all of the athlete’s results from the date of sample collection have been canceled. This also led to a review of the results of the 2022 Olympics team tournament, where the Russian team won. First place is now awarded to the American team, the Japanese are second and the Russians will receive bronze.

— Eteri Tutberidze doubted the work of the lawyers who defended Kamila Valieva in court. Do you think it is possible for a coach not to know those who defend his athlete in court?

— Eteri Tutberidze can’t help but know who defended Kamila in court. This is the first thing that should interest a coach. Not only Valieva, but also Eteri Tutberidze herself are involved in this situation. How can she not know? We should ask him who defended Camila in court.

If, God forbid, such a situation happened to me, I would say it was my fault. I do not evaluate the actions of Eteri Tutberidze, but I would say that I was guilty, I mixed things up, I gave the wrong thing, but I would take the responsibility off the child. This seems to be the only right decision,” Tarasova told .