She has the right to stay on the ice…for now. Tested positive at the end of December for a banned substance, the young Russian skater Kamila Valieva, 15, was authorized on Monday to continue her Beijing Olympics, with the individual event on Tuesday of which she is the great favorite.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), without ruling on the merits of the case, confirmed the lifting of the provisional suspension of the teenager, decided last Wednesday by the Russian anti-doping agency (Rusada). “Preventing the athlete from competing in the Olympics would cause him irreparable harm,” observed the three referees, even though his young age (under 16) implies specific rules of evidence and reduced penalties.
All his results at the Olympics can still be canceled
The young prodigy can therefore continue to defend her chances of individual Olympic gold, from her first season among seniors, even if nothing prevents her from being sanctioned within several months and seeing her results canceled there. included for the Olympics. The International Olympic Committee announced during the day that it would await a decision on the merits of its file before a presentation of the medals of the events where it is aligned.
The women’s short program is scheduled from 6 p.m. local on Tuesday (11 a.m. French) and Valieva, who became the first skater to land quadruple jumps in Olympic history during the team competition a week ago, is due to skate at 9:52 p.m. local (2:52 p.m. French).
The Russian teenager, a product of the harsh Eteri Tutberidze champion factory in Moscow, has only 24 hours to focus on the most important competition of his budding career, after several days of a huge storm. It was not until after the team event won by the Russians that Valieva was notified of the positive result of an anti-doping test carried out by Rusada on December 25 in Saint Petersburg, during the Russian Championships.
This “late notification”, by the Stockholm laboratory in charge of the analysis, “prevented the athlete from reacting” even though she had nothing to do with it, explained to the press Matthieu Reeb, the general manager of the TAS. “If the procedures had been settled in 10 days as usual, I would not be here,” he said.
The Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) on Monday described as “the best news of the day” the decision of the Court of Arbitration for Sport which allows young skater Kamila Valieva to continue her Olympics despite a positive doping control. “The whole country supports her and all our skaters for the individual event,” the ROC said on its Telegram channel.
‘A new chapter in Russia’s widespread disregard for clean sport’
The US Olympic Committee, whose athletes finished second in the team event, said it was “disappointed”. “Athletes have the right to know that they are fighting with equal chances. Unfortunately today this right has been denied. This appears to be a new chapter in Russia’s systemic and widespread disregard for clean sport,” its president, Sarah Hirshland, wrote in a statement.
The offending product is trimetazidine, a substance used to treat angina pectoris and banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) since 2014, because it promotes blood circulation.
This decision casts immense doubt on the future of Valieva’s Olympic destiny: temporarily suspended by Rusada at first, Valieva obtained the lifting of this measure the next day, for reasons that remained mysterious. This led the IOC, but also WADA and the International Skating Federation, to appeal to the CAS against this decision. On Monday, WADA also blamed Russian anti-doping for the long delay between the sample and the test result.
“Rusada had not indicated the sample in question as a priority for analysis when the anti-doping laboratory in Stockholm received it […] the laboratory could not have known that the analysis of this sample was a priority”, she regrets in a press release.
It took six weeks, between the sample on December 25 during the Russian Championships and the notification on February 8 of the positive control for trimetazidine, used to relieve angina pectoris and which would improve blood circulation. WADA provides for a result within 20 days, and less in the event of a major competition such as the Olympics.
She practiced everyday
Since the formalization of her positive control on Friday, Valieva continued to train conscientiously day after day, sometimes on the Olympic ice, sometimes on the training rink. With the exception of a sound “hello” launched Sunday morning, accompanied by members of the Russian management, she remained silent at each of her crossings of the mixed zone. She even hid her face behind her sweatshirt on Friday. This Monday, she returned to the ice for a new session of about forty minutes.
The Valieva affair started at the beginning of last week, when the IOC announced that the medal ceremony for the team competition, won on Monday by Russia, which is competing under a neutral flag, was postponed for “legal” reasons. The Russian press then mentioned a positive doping control of Valieva, but it was necessary to wait for a press release Friday from the ITA, the body responsible for the anti-doping program of the Olympics, to have confirmation.
Even though Valieva had been suspended, Russian skating and the Tutberidze school kept arguments. His main competitors are also his training partners, precisely Anna Shcherbakova, reigning world champion, and Alexandra Trusova, world and European medalist, both 17 years old.
The Valieva affair, when it is examined on the merits, could also revive suspicions surrounding Russian sport, whose reputation is already well tarnished in terms of doping by the scandal of the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi.
