AEven 24 hours after a possible doping case put the Russian figure skating team’s Olympic victory in jeopardy, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has not given any information as to why the awards ceremony scheduled for Tuesday evening did not take place.
Earlier, the Russian media house RBK reported that Kamila Valiyeva, a 15-year-old star among Russian figure skaters and the first female competitor to do quadruple jumps at the Olympic Games, had tested positive for the banned heart drug trimetazidine.
“I will not comment on speculation that I also saw overnight,” said IOC spokesman Mark Adams at a press conference on Thursday morning (local time) in Beijing. There is a legal dispute that should be brought to a conclusion as soon as possible. “That’s all I can say,” Adams said. In general, the International Testing Agency is responsible for doping samples. The International Court of Arbitration for Sport CAS is responsible for the legal assessment. Neither organization has commented so far. Adams did not want to confirm that they are responsible in this case.
The Russian team around the outstanding Kamila Valiewa won the team competition in Beijing on Monday. The award ceremony scheduled for this was postponed on Tuesday evening. On Wednesday, the International Skating Union and the IOC spoke of a “suddenly arisen legal matter”. Late in the evening Beijing time, the industry portal “Inside The Games” initially reported that Kamila Valiyeva was at the center of the controversy.
Effects would be unpredictable
Given the state-sponsored cheating of the Russian hosts at the Sochi Games eight years ago, the repercussions of a possible Russian doping case are yet to be seen – especially if it actually involves Kamila Valiyeva, the biggest star of the Russian Olympic Committee team.
The Russian athletes will not start in Beijing and at the world championships until December 2022 for their country, but for the Russian Olympic Committee. The sanction is the result of an arbitral award by the CAS, which imposed the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)’s original four-year penalty on Russian sport and its state bodies – for the attempted and, to a large extent, successful destruction of evidence for the state doping program that has been maintained for years and flown to Sochi.
The halving of the WADA sanction, which a number of Western athletes already perceived as a largely symbolic punishment, had again caused criticism. How many athletes have benefited from the Russian cheating system over the years is just as unknown as the number of athletes who have lost their sporting success as a result.