The highest court in sports has sanctioned Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva for doping violations at the 2022 Beijing Olympics.
The ruling has set the stage for US skaters, who finished second behind Valieva and her teammates in the team competition, to receive gold medals.
The Beijing Olympics were rocked when, about 24 hours after Valieva led Russia to victory in the team event, details about a sample taken at Russia’s national championships six weeks earlier revealed there was a banned heart medication in her system.
More than half a dozen proceedings and appeals took place over the ensuing 23 months, culminating in Monday’s decision by the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS), which is essentially the supreme court for international sports events.
Here is a look at the case and what will happen next:
Though the CAS decision disqualifies Valieva’s results from the Olympics, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) controls Olympic medals.
When Valieva’s case first erupted, the committee decided not to award medals from the event while the skaters were in Beijing.
Now it seems certain that at a meeting in March, it will award the gold to the Americans, while silver and bronze will go to Japan and Canada, which finished third and fourth, respectively, in the event.
There is a chance Valieva could lodge an appeal in Switzerland’s supreme court, though chances of a victory there are very slim.
How and where the medals will be presented is anyone’s guess.
Sometimes, national Olympic committees hold ceremonies in conjunction with big events in their countries to give the Olympians a sense of what it may have been like to receive those medals at the Games. Other times, the medals are handed out at international championships.
Figure-skating’s next world championships are scheduled for March 18-24 in Montreal, the same week as the IOC meeting. The next Winter Olympics are still two years away.
Regardless, pretty much everyone agrees that athletes who get their medals months or years after the contest have been cheated out of not just their moment, but also any post-Olympics benefit, both financial and emotional, that comes from bringing home a medal in the days after they’ve won it.
“I think two years is too long for this decision to be made, and we may never know why it has taken this long,” said US ice dancer Evan Bates, who was on the team in Beijing and who partnered with Madison Chock for their fifth US title over the weekend.
“We’re just looking forward to getting some closure after a long waiting period.”
In many circles, Valieva was seen as the most helpless victim. She was 15 when the positive test was discovered, and evidence pointed to people in her entourage who were giving her the drug trimetazidine, which can be administered to prevent angina attacks but is also known to increase blood-flow efficiency and improve endurance.
Days after her case exploded, she competed in an error-filled free skate in the individual event, prompting a controversial reaction from her coach: “Why did you stop fighting? Explain it to me. Why?”
Russia invaded Ukraine less than a week after the Olympics ended, and figure-skating’s international federation has since banned Russian skaters from its events. Valieva, who turns 18 in April, has skated in Russian national competitions but is no longer considered the invincible force she was heading into Beijing.
It’s not unheard of for world-class skaters to fall off the radar before returning to their former glory. However, clearly there is more involved in Valieva’s future — for instance, Russia’s standing in international sports — than simply her ability and desire to return.
Valieva’s case is not part of the doping scandal that has prevented Russia from competing under its own flag at the Olympics since 2016. In 2022, she was competing as a member of the “ROC” — short for Russian Olympic Committee, not for Russia itself — because of sanctions stemming from the state-sponsored doping scandal designed to help Russians win more medals at their home Olympics in Sochi in 2014.
But what the Valieva case exposed was the fact that, even 10 years after Sochi, things are still not back to “normal” in Russia.
The country’s anti-doping agency remains non-compliant with World Anti-Doping Agency rules.
And the fact that the CAS case was an appeal of a Russian anti-doping tribunal decision that would’ve awarded the gold medal to Valieva is a sign that Russia still isn’t completely on the same page with international regulators.
The war in Ukraine has only added to the confusion.
Officials of some sports, such as track, aren’t allowing Russians to compete at this year’s Paris Olympics under any circumstances.
Others will allow them in but only as “individual neutral athletes” because of the war — a status not unlike what existed from 2016-22 because of the doping.
AP
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