According to sports daily Sport Express, Valieva, 15, will line up in the second edition of the Pervy Kanal Cup which will take place from Friday to Sunday in Saransk, 500 km southeast of Moscow.

She will notably be opposed to her training partner Anna Shcherbakova, crowned Olympic champion in Beijing in February.

The Russian Skating Federation announced in mid-March that it was rescheduling the Pervy Kanal Cup from March 25 to 27 to make its dates coincide with the 2022 World Championships which started on Wednesday in Montpellier, without the Russians or Belarusians, excluded from all international competitions by the International Skating Federation (ISU) after Russia invaded Ukraine.

The list of participants was not known until then: in addition to Valieva and Shcherbakova, the couples Evgeniya Tarasova/Vladimir Morozov and Anastasia Mishina/Aleksandr Galliamov, respectively 2nd and 3rd in Beijing, and the duo Victoria Sinitsina/Nikita will be competing. Katsalapov, Olympic vice-champions in ice dancing.

Valieva has not appeared in competition since her catastrophic performance in the free program of the Olympic Games-2022 in February which caused her to drop from first place (after the short program) to 4th place in the final.

The Russian teenager was one of the outstanding figures of the last Winter Games, after the announcement in full JO-2022 of his positive doping control at the end of December, the authorization received at the last minute from the Court of Arbitration for Sport ( TAS) to participate in the women's event, her rout in the free program and her heartbreaking sobs not comforted by her coach Eteri Tutberidze.

Valieva had started her 2022 Olympics by participating in Russia's victory in the team event and on this occasion becoming the first skater to land quadruple jumps at the Olympics.

At the end of December, on the sidelines of the Russian Championships, she had tested positive for trimetazidine, a molecule used to relieve angina pectoris and banned by the World Doping Agency since 2014, because it would promote blood circulation.

Because she is under 16, Valieva risks between a simple reprimand and two years of suspension.

The process could take several months.

© 2022 AFP