Tested positive at the end of December for a banned substance, the 15-year-old teenager was authorized on Monday to participate in the individual event of the Beijing Olympics on Tuesday, announces the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
Kamila Valieva has the right to dream of Olympic gold in individual skating in Beijing. Twenty-four hours from the women’s figure skating event, the Russian teenager, a huge favorite for Olympic gold but tested positive for a prohibited substance, received the green light on Monday from the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and will be able to so show up on the ice on Tuesday for the short program. Its passage is scheduled at 9:52 p.m. local (2:52 p.m. French).
Seized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) but also WADA and the International Skating Federation, the panel of the CAS ad hoc chamber heard the parties for six hours until early Monday morning by videoconference. Far from deciding the merits of the case, the sports court was seized of a single question: should the young prodigy, already victorious in the team last week, and favorite of the individual event on Tuesday, be allowed to compete? On this point, the CAS agreed by confirming around 2 p.m. local time (7 a.m. in France) the lifting of the provisional suspension of Valieva by the Russian anti-doping agency (Rusada).
The CAS justifies its decision by the unusually long time between the collection of the test, carried out by Rusada on December 25 during the Russian Championships in Saint Petersburg, and the result of the doping control of the skater by an approved laboratory in Stockholm at the beginning of last week. That’s six weeks. The World Anti-Doping Agency normally expects a test result within 20 days, and less in the event of a major competition such as the Games.
“It’s not the athlete’s fault that the notification came to him in the middle of the Olympics”, advances the director general of the CAS, Matthieu Reeb. This delay prevented her from defending herself “and it must benefit him”. In this context, continues Matthieu Reeb, “prevent him from participating in the Olympics” before even having examined the merits of the case “would have caused irreparable damage”depriving her of any chance of gold if later “she had not been sanctioned or had received a weak sanction”.
The Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) describes the decision as “best news of the day” on its Telegram channel, while the American Olympic Committee says to itself “disappointed”. The young prodigy, she has only some twenty-four hours to refocus on the competition – the most important of her budding career – after an incredible first Olympic week.
Present at all training
Pure product of the champion factory of the severe Eteri Tutberidze in Moscow, crowned European champion a month ago and until then undefeated for her first winter as seniors, Valieva has been caught up in this embarrassing doping affair in full Beijing Games. Precisely the day after his shared victory with the Russians in the skating team event. An event during which Valieva caused a sensation, becoming the first skater to land quadruple jumps in Olympic history. The “quad girl” dominated both the short program, brushing her recent world record, and the free program, with nearly thirty points ahead of the second, the Japanese Kaori Sakamoto. The medal ceremony has still not taken place. This is not likely to be for now: the IOC judges on Monday “inappropriate” to organize the ceremony by the end of the Games, and prefers to wait for the merits of the case to be decided.
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. She should be ready to try to grab a second Olympic title in Beijing.
And after ?
Once the Games have passed, it will therefore be necessary to clarify the details. The in-depth examination of the consequences of her positive test will be guided by a double challenge: a period of prohibition of any competition if she is found guilty of having doped, and the retroactive cancellation of all her results since December 25.
Kamila Valieva could therefore not only lose her title of Russian champion at the end of 2021 and European champion at the start of 2022, but also the Olympic team gold and the possible medal that she can win individually on Tuesday. To avoid such a disappointment, the young skater will have to justify in particular the presence in her body of trimetazidine. The incriminated product is used to treat angina pectoris and banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) since 2014, because it promotes blood circulation. A point that could prove to be crucial: the regulations of the International Skating Federation (ISU) allow for example to escape a suspension if the athlete has ingested a “contaminated product” by a prohibited substance.
In its decision, the CAS recalls, however, that Kamila Valieva is under 16 years old. It is therefore considered by WADA as a “protected person”with specific rules of evidence and reduced penalties, ranging from a “reprimand” at “two years of suspension”against four usually, according to the World Anti-Doping Code.