The Herald:

Nearly five decades later their names remain woven into the fabric of my childhood: Ludmilla Tourischeva, Nellie Kim and Olga Korbut. In years dominated by the hardy deeds of grizzled footballers these three little eastern European sprites brought grace and beauty. They will never grow old.

Korbut was slightly younger than the other two and had won four Olympic golds and two silvers - at Munich in 1972 and Montreal in 1976 - before retiring in 1977 at the age of 22.

It wasn’t until several years later that we began to learn the desperately sad truth behind their deeds. Their lives, like those of many other gifted young elite athletes from behind the old Iron Curtain had effectively been annexed by the state to perform at its pleasure until their battered bodies could be of no further use.

In their most productive years they were propaganda tools for regimes eager to demonstrate physical and spiritual superiority of communism. And then afterwards the sanctimonious west used their example to fuel their own anti-Soviet propaganda: “look at how this evil empire uses sport as a weapon. You’d never catch us doing any of that.”

The torment of the gifted 15-year-old Russian ice skater, Kamila Valieva brought memories of those three elven gymnasts. Having tested positive for a banned substance taken more than two months ago this schoolgirl finds herself – through no fault of her own – featuring in a moral Game of Thrones.

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