For two days, the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) team had a sword of Damocles over their heads, after their victory in the figure skating team event. Lhe medal ceremony was still long overduefor what the IOC then described as “legal issue”. Between the lines, it should have read: for doping. The formalization fell on Friday February 11, the young prodigy of 15 years Kamila Valieva tested positive for doping trimetazidine, end December.
Kamila Valieva became the first skater to land a quadruple jump at the Olympics on Monday during the women’s free program counting for the team competition. Snly the Japanese Miki Ando had already signed a quadruple jump in international competition (a salchow also, in the final of the 2002 Junior Grand Prix). His performance on the Bolero de Ravel had earned him a cannon score of 178.92 points, just over six points from his own world record (185.29). Crowned European champion less than a month ago, the skater remains undefeated this season, for her first winter as a senior.
But the American daily USA Today revealed on Wednesday that a member of the Russian team was concerned by a positive doping test. The ITA, the body in charge of doping controls during the Games, confirmed this on Friday.
Kamila Valieva had initially obtained the lifting of her provisional suspension by the Russian anti-doping body on Wednesday, two days after the Olympic gold won in the team event. But the International Olympic Committee decided to appeal this decision before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) because “a decision is necessary before February 15”date of the start of the women’s individual competition.
Trimetazidine, used to relieve angina pectoris, has been banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) since 2014. But Valieva’s age (under 16) makes her a “protected person”, which implies special provisions, confidentiality around its control and potentially reduced sanctions, according to WADA regulations.
Silence has prevailed since Tuesday evening within the Russian clan. Athletes who trained did not utter a word while others enjoyed a “day off”according to their coach.
The case stirs up old ghosts. In December 2014, the German channel ARD revealed a system of systematic doping of Russian athletes covered by the national authorities. This state doping was active between 2011 and 2015. The Olympic Games in Sochi in 2014, and the World Athletics Championships in Moscow in 2013, are notably singled out as competitions where the doping system would have been running at full speed.
The CAS has excluded, in 2020, Russia from the Olympic Games for two years, including the Games of Tokyo 2021 and those of Beijing 2022, that is to say half of the sanction required by the World Anti-Doping Agency. Athletes who have never been convicted of doping can nevertheless participate in these Games under a neutral banner (the ROC).
