MILAN—When a mysterious Russian teenage figure skater showed up at the Olympic ice rink, nobody was quite sure what to expect.

Adeliia Petrosian had competed only once internationally in the four years before the Games. She had never battled the American and Japanese skaters who have taken over the sport while Russia has been banned. She hadn’t even met any of them.

But there was one thing they all knew about the 18-year-old national champion from Moscow: She was coached by a notorious figure known in Russia as the “Snow Queen.”

Eteri Tutberidze upended the last Winter Games with her trio of Russian teenagers with a terrifying technical arsenal of quadruple jumps. Two went home with gold and silver medals. The other went home as the central figure in an international doping scandal.

Now Tutberidze is back with her latest protégée.

Their very presence here is an act of defiance against the sport that shunned them. Despite the ban and the world’s efforts to sideline Russia, a Russian figure skater might still wind up in a familiar place: the Olympic medal podium.

With a solid performance to a Michael Jackson medley, Petrosian found herself in fifth place after Tuesday’s short program, setting up a free skate on Thursday that has potential to be dramatic even by the standards of figure skating.

Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics – Figure Skating – Women Single Skating – Short Program – Milano Ice Skating Arena, Milan, Italy – February 17, 2026. Adeliia Petrosian of AIN performs during the Short Program REUTERS/Yara Nardi

In the second half of the competition, Petrosian is planning to unleash two quads on a night when nobody else is lining up even one. The skater with the highest technical ceiling in the field has been inconsistent in practice this week, landing her quads one day and wiping out the next. But if she pulls them off on Thursday, Petrosian could leave with a medal—and possibly even a gold.

Until she set foot on the ice in Milan, most of what people knew about Petrosian was limited to seven minutes of footage from her lone international competition last year. Under gargantuan pressure, she clinched the sole Olympic women’s figure skating berth allotted to Russia to compete as an Individual Neutral Athlete.

Because of her glaring lack of international experience, Petrosian skated her short program in the first group on Tuesday, a full three hours before the top-seeded medal contenders she will skate with in the final group on Thursday. As she took the ice to cheers from fans waving banners with her name and hearts, the arena’s video screen flashed her message to the crowd: “Do what you feel to do!”

Meanwhile, waiting in the tunnel was someone with a long history of doing exactly that.

As Petrosian received her scores, Tutberidze watched on a monitor backstage. Because the coach hadn’t attempted to clear the Olympics’ vetting process for Russian skaters and their official support staff, she wasn’t permitted to be with her rinkside.

Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics – Figure Skating – Team Event – Men Single Skating – Free Skating – Milano Ice Skating Arena, Milan, Italy – February 08, 2026. Coach of Nika Egadze, Eteri Tutberidze watches on during the men’s single free skating REUTERS/Amanda Perobelli

But there are no rules preventing Tutberidze from being with her in practice. Petrosian’s first appearance at the glorified barn that is serving as the Olympic practice rink drew a huddled crowd of reporters, eager to see Tutberidze’s latest student in person.

During her training sessions, there was an easily recognizable shock of platinum blonde curls at the boards.

Tutberidze coached three successive Russian teenagers to Olympic gold medals in 2014, 2018 and 2022—and churned through far more. From her rink in Moscow, she has become so famous that she was recently the subject of a streaming docuseries called “The Tutberidze Method.”

That method pits her trainees against each other as they keep training through unrelenting criticism, strict scrutiny of their weight and brutal injuries. When she won her Olympic qualifier, Petrosian said on camera during the show that she was “practically missing a leg.”

Tutberidze became widely known outside Russia and the world of figure skating when her prized student Kamila Valieva was engulfed in a doping saga during the Beijing 2022 Games. After testing positive for a banned heart drug, she was still allowed to skate for individual gold. She led after the short program but melted down with gold at stake.

2022 Beijing Olympics – Figure Skating – Training – Training Rink Capital Indoor Stadium, Beijing, China – February 13, 2022. Kamila Valieva of the Russian Olympic Committee speaks with Russian Olympic Committee coach Sergei Dudakov during training. REUTERS/Evgenia Novozhenina

After Tutberidze berated the crying 15-year-old and her other pupils took gold and silver but still sobbed—“I hate this sport!” one declared—the International Olympic Committee president said he was “very, very disturbed” by figure skating’s horrifying night of tears.

Within days of the Closing Ceremony, Russia invaded Ukraine and its athletes were barred from global sports. Figure skating officials slammed the door on future 15-year-old prodigies , instituting a minimum age requirement of 17 for senior competition. The anti-doping investigations resulted in a four-year ban for Valieva and the voiding of her Olympic results—but, crucially, no punishments for anyone in her entourage.

Even at that point, the idea of Tutberidze with a women’s figure skating contender in 2026 would have sounded preposterous. To the president of the World Anti-Doping Agency, it still does.

“I don’t feel comfortable with her presence here,” Witold Bańka said before the Games.

But the IOC said Tutberidze was here on her Georgian passport as a coach for that country’s skaters—and there was nothing stopping her from helping other athletes outside the official competition.

After the skate that vaulted her into medal contention, Petrosian sounded upbeat. She revealed that she is sharing an apartment with her mother, rather than staying in the Olympic Village. Once she held court with Russian reporters, including one dressed as Michael Jackson himself, complete with red sequined top and silver gloves, Petrosian took a single question in English.

“I don’t feel any pressure yet, and I haven’t really crossed paths with anyone,” she said in Russian. “I really like—both here and in Russia—to separate myself from everyone.”

Then she glided through the backstage area and disappeared out of sight, just like her coach.