Backroom deal in doping case?
Valiyeva’s competitor complains about “absurd hearing”
September 26, 2023, 3:28 p.m
The doping case involving Russian figure skating prodigy Kamila Valiyeva is being heard by the International Criminal Court. However, the hearing will not be held publicly. There is great criticism of the process, and athlete representatives fear collusion.
Almost 600 days have passed since the moment that would become a highlight of Vincent Zhou’s career. Silver in Beijing with the US figure skating team: a great Olympic success, which, however, is still overshadowed by the doping case involving the Russian Kamila Valiyeva. An award ceremony never took place. Zhou and Co. are still waiting for their medals.
Since this Tuesday, the grueling Valiyeva case, the overshadowing scandal of the 2022 Winter Games, has been heard before the International Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne. But Zhou’s last hope for justice is almost gone. “The idea that such a hearing serves the interests of clean athletes is absurd,” he criticized in an open letter.
The now 17-year-old Valiyeva, who won the competition with the Russian team, is to be connected via video and faces a ban of up to four years. The hearing is initially scheduled for three days, Friday could be added. Zhou and his teammates originally wanted to attend the proceedings, but now everything is taking place behind closed doors. The criticism is great.
Zhou wants “transparent hearing”
“An open and transparent hearing would help athletes understand any decision,” Zhou said. With listeners it would also have been ensured that “there could be no backroom deals,” emphasized the general director of the athletes’ association Global Athlete, Rob Koehler, in an interview with Sportschau.
During the Beijing Games in February 2022, a urine sample from Valiyeva, taken at the Russian championships in December 2021, tested positive for the banned drug trimetazidine. Since the result was only finally evaluated after the decision in the team competition, the medals have not been awarded to this day – to the dismay of the US team. “As my team’s empty medal boxes show, the global anti-doping system is failing athletes,” Zhou said. He accused the CAS and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) of lacking toughness in dealing with Russia.
The Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) had decided not to impose a ban on Valiyeva. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the International Skating Union (ISU) then demanded that all of Waliyeva’s results be withdrawn from December 25, 2021, the day the doping test was taken, and appealed to the CAS.
“Symbol of gross failure”
According to Valiyeva’s defense attorneys, the young figure skater had drunk from a glass from which her heart-sick grandfather had allegedly taken his medication. When the date was announced in June, the Court made it clear that the time of the decision “could not be stated at this time”.
For Zhou, the case and the denied award ceremony remain “a symbol of the gross failure” of the institutions around the IOC, regardless of the outcome. On the one hand, medals are important when looking for sponsors, on the other hand, he and his team members have been prevented “forever” from experiencing “the moment that every athlete dreams of.”