In the last century, the Soviet Union and the GDR fought for medals and recognition with state doping. Now history seems to be repeating itself with a 15-year-old figure skater.
Kamila Valiyeva.
Deep in the 21st century, the shadows of the Cold War have regained their grip not only on international politics but also on the Olympic Games as a sideshow of the ideological tug-of-war. This time, the focus is on a 15-year-old figure skater, who many international observers count among the greatest talents in the history of her sport.
Kamila Valiyeva, born April 26, 2006 in Kazan, reportedly tested positive for trimetazidine on December 25 at the national championships in St. Petersburg. The heart drug increases oxygen uptake in the blood and improves energy utilization and carbohydrate metabolism. It has been on the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) list of banned substances since 2014.
The award ceremony of the team competition, in which the Russians won gold thanks to Valiyeva, has been suspended until further notice. Whether the young Russian will be able to compete in the individual competition on Tuesday is an open question. The International Sports Court in Lausanne (TAS) met on Sunday evening Beijing time for a video conference, during which Valiyeva is said to have been heard. The verdict is expected on Monday.
The sport is being shaken
But one thing is already certain: the Valiyeva case will not be over with the judgment of the CAS. The timing, but also the general conditions, raise questions that will keep international sport busy for months to come. The Stockholm laboratory, which was commissioned to evaluate the sample, took six weeks before the result was available. It only became public on February 8, one day after the team competition in which Valiyeva won gold. The Russian anti-doping agency Rusada then suspended the athlete as a precaution, but lifted the ban just over 24 hours later.
Christophe Dubi, the Swiss CEO of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), said in a media briefing on Sunday: “Because of her age, we have to treat the case with extreme caution.” Special rules apply to underage athletes. According to the Wada Codex, their names may not be published in the event of a positive test. This undoubtedly contributed to the confusion.
But Valiyeva’s age will also play a role when it comes to sanctions. The Russian is unlikely to face the usual two-year ban. Hardly anyone assumes that she knowingly doped herself with the heart drug. The focus is rather on her environment with the trainer Eteri Tutberidze, who is controversial even in Russia, but of course also on the national Olympic Committee of Russia.
Because of state-orchestrated doping and the cover-up of positive tests at the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, official Russia and its Wada protagonists are excluded from all international competitions until the end of the current year. As at the previous games in Rio de Janeiro, Pyeongchang and Tokyo, the Russian athletes are only allowed to participate in Beijing thanks to a special regulation.
The Russians are in a way on probation in Beijing. Should it be confirmed that an athlete who is not yet 16 years old has been doped against her knowledge and thus also against her will, that would not only be the next massive loss of image for the national Olympic Committee and the masterminds behind it. It would also be a throwback to last century practices and sporting tug-of-war in the midst of the Cold War.
From the late 1960s until well into the 1980s, the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) with its almost 17 million inhabitants produced dozens of top athletes by illegal means. In this way, the GDR kept up in the prestigious medal race with the class enemies from the USA, but also with the allies from the Soviet Union.
The anabolic steroid Oral-Turinabol, which young female athletes were given as “vitamins” against their knowledge, became notorious. The drug’s notorious side effects included personality changes and birth defects in babies, as well as masculinization in female athletes. When a competing swimming coach on the sidelines of the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal mocked the deep voices of the East German athletes, one of their coaches replied that his team had come to the games to swim, not sing.
With the collapse of the former Eastern Bloc and the establishment of Wada, the dark age of drug-driven performance manipulation seemed to be over. That this was a misconception was already shown by the incidents surrounding the Russian manipulations surrounding the 2014 Sochi Games.
Grigory Rodchenko, the former head of the Moscow anti-doping laboratory, told the New York Times in 2017: “In the Russian system, athletes have no choice but to cheat. Even if some do it enthusiastically, there are also many who would rather compete without doping and without the latent fear of being caught.”
Sympathy from Katarina Witt
Kamila Valiewa is probably one of those athletes who are more likely to be victims than perpetrators. Katarina Witt, who won Olympic gold in figure skating for East Germany in 1984 and 1988 and was part of that merciless system, wrote on her Facebook page: “The scandal is a dramatic turning point in her young and promising career. I sincerely hope she has enough people by her side to protect and encourage her.”
The German ice skating icon also wrote that whoever was responsible for the doping case should be excluded from the sport for life. It is a hope that has been shattered too many times.