Ok, I did not compose my message very well

)) (I am not a native speaker, sorry for my poor English...

)
Neither care I about the religion of athletes since in sports performane should be the only thing that matters.
Btw, many people in the post-soviet region are non-religious as a consequence of the decades of communist rule. (However, official national holidays are celebrated even by atheists.)
But in Russia Christmas as an official national holiday is celebrated on 7 January.
December 24-25-26 are ordinary workdays and weekend days whereas the holidays are around 7 January:
https://www.officeholidays.com/countries/russia/2021 and
https://www.officeholidays.com/countries/russia/2022
Hence the Russian Nationals usually scheduled to around 24 Dec before the state-wide "holiday season" begins on 31 Dec and ends on 8 Jan.
And I am not saying the Valiev family could not have their Christmas gathering on 24 Dec. I am only saying that the possiblity of it is rather low whereas the possibility that is a bit of deviating from the truth to explain the presence of the grandpa and which would hopefully be overlooked by "ignorant Westeners

" is much much higher.
So for me it indeed raises questions about the authenticity of their response to the charges.