FIFTEEN-year-old Kamila Valieva delivered her lowest score of the season today — but it was still more than enough to lead the women’s figure skating competition after the short programme.

Valieva, cleared to compete on Monday by an ad-hoc committee of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) despite a positive drugs test, stumbled on her opening triple axel, but her total of 82.16 was enough to put her in first place above her compatriot Anna Shcherbakova.

It leaves Valieva as clear favourite to win the event when it concludes with the free skate tomorrow. But if she finishes in the top three, no medals will be awarded, with the podium put on hold until the full investigations into the Russian’s doping case has concluded.

Earlier, International Olympic Committee head of discipline Denis Oswald revealed that the Russian case to the CAS had centred on the claim that the trace of trimetazidine in Valieva’s system could have come from sharing the same drinking glass as her grandfather, who takes the drug for medical reasons.

“Her argument was this contamination happened with a product her grandfather was taking,” Oswald told reporters.

Brad Hall and Nick Gleeson crashed on their penultimate run of the two-man bobsleigh and finished 11th as Great Britain’s Winter Olympics nightmare continued.

Hall’s sled overturned towards the end of the run in Yanqing and they slid over the finish line on their side, but both emerged unscathed.

Germany completed a clean sweep of the medals with defending champion Francesco Friedrich claiming his third Olympic gold.

Team-mates Johannes Lochner and Christoph Hafer piloted their teams to silver and bronze respectively.

Eve Muirhead kept her hopes of a second Olympic medal alive after steering GB’s women’s curling team to an emphatic 10-4 win over Japan at the National Aquatics Centre.

Muirhead went into the game knowing victory was vital to maintaining their semi-final ambitions after a frustrating defeat to Canada on Monday left them adrift of the top four.

But once again her team showed resilience in adversity to force a Japanese concession with two ends remaining, and set them up nicely for another crucial showdown on Wednesday with hosts China.

Earlier Italy’s Sofia Goggia won a remarkable silver medal in the women’s downhill just three weeks after partially tearing a knee ligament in a crash in Cortina.

The reigning Olympic champion revealed she battled through the pain barrier to take second place, 0.16 seconds behind gold medallist Corinne Suter of Switzerland, with Goggia’s compatriot Nadia Delgado taking bronze.