Karina Valieva (d), junto a su entrenadora, Eteri Tutberidze. /
The Court of Arbitration for Sport meets this Sunday and on Monday it will decide whether the young Russian skater can continue competing in Beijing 2022 or is expelled for her positive result for trimetazidine
In the eye of the hurricane for what is already the great Beijing 2022 doping scandal, the young Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva returned to training this Saturday on the track next to the Capital Indoor Stadium. Questioned about her positive for trimetazidine on December 25 in St. Petersburg, which came to light six weeks late, Valieva returned to her routine on the ice, but she still does not know if she will be able to compete again in these Games. Winter Olympics.
His presence in the individual figure skating event on ice, scheduled for Tuesday, will depend on what the Court of Arbitration for Sport decides, which meets this Sunday. Its resolution will be known on Monday afternoon (during the morning in Spain).
Until the moment of truth arrives, her coach, Eteri Tutberidze, has defended her tooth and nail. As she explained in an interview with Russian state television, she is convinced that her ward is “clean” and “innocent.” What she does not understand is the enormous delay in the notification of the positive by the laboratory that carried out the control after Valieva’s performance, which was the Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm, as it is accredited by the World Anti-Doping Agency. “It is not clear why an athlete with suspected doping on December 25 was authorized to participate in the Olympic Games. Whether it is an unfortunate set of circumstances or a very well laid out plan, I hope that our officials do not abandon us and defend our rights to prove our innocence, “said the coach in her television interview, collects Reuters.
Faced with the monumental scandal, all parties pass the ball for the delay in notifying the positive. Both the Russian Olympic Committee and its figure skating federation and its anti-doping agency (Rusada) blame the Karolinska laboratory, which had apparently delayed its results due to an outbreak of covid-19 that affected its staff. True or not, there is still no official explanation for this incomprehensible delay in notification, especially in the case of a skater who was going to compete in the Beijing Games, where anti-doping tests are known in 24 or 72 hours at the most. For this reason, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has also lifted the dead off by offloading responsibility for the delay, and its explanation, on the World Anti-Doping Agency.
Waiting for the mess to be clarified, the ‘Valieva case’ once again puts Russia on the pillory, which is banned from the Games for its state doping and can only compete under the banner of its Olympic committee. While her athletes try to clear her name, this scandal has tarnished a child prodigy like Kamila Valieva, who at just 15 years old had amazed the world with her quadruple jump. Due to her young age, the detection in her body of trimetazidine, a drug for angina pectoris that is little used because it is dangerous, seems to target the elders around her and, in particular, her coach, Eteri Tutberidze, a teacher of other skaters with careers as brilliant as they are ephemeral.
