Russian Kamila Valieva can continue skating, despite testing positive for trimetazidine

She can still dream of Olympic gold. Kamila Valieva will be among the competitors who will take to the ice on Tuesday, February 15, during the short program of the women’s individual event of the Olympic Games, where she will be one of the main favorites.

The young Russian skater (15), who had tested positive for trimetazidine, a prohibited substance, during a test carried out on December 25, 2021 during the Russian championships, was authorized on Monday by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (TAS) to compete in Beijing. The sports court considered that depriving her of an event, before having examined the merits of the case, would have caused her prejudice “irreparable”.

Read also Olympic Games 2022: positive doping control before the Beijing Games for Russian skater Kamila Valieva

The announcement of Kamila Valieva’s positive test for a product used to treat angina pectoris – but accused of promoting blood circulation, and therefore banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) – had been made on February 11, three days after the victory of Russia in the team event, to which the young skater had contributed greatly. The medal ceremony, which had been suspended, will not ” probably not “ take place before the end of the Games, International Olympic Committee (IOC) spokesman Mark Adams said on Monday.

The Russian Olympic Committee welcomed CAS’s decision. Disappointment, on the other hand, on the side of the American Committee (USOPC), whose team had finished in second place in the event. “This appears to be a new chapter in Russia’s systemic and widespread disregard for clean sport”the USOPC wrote in a statement.

Controversial methods

The IOC, WADA and the International Skating Federation (ISU) had appealed to the CAS on Saturday against the decision of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (Rusada), on February 9, to lift the provisional suspension of the skater. “The surroundings [de Valieva] has been negligent in the past,” said the IOC spokesperson. Without being mentioned by name, it was the trainer Eteri Tutberidze who was under fire from the critics: the latter is the head of a skating school in Moscow, the Sambo-70, whose methods are controversial. and of which Kamila Valieva is the umpteenth and last nugget.

“Eteri Tutberidze? He is an emblematic character, one of the greatest coaches of Russian skating. She dominates almost all women’s competitions. The best talents in the country all end up in his school”told the World Romain Haguenauer, the coach of the couple of French ice dancers, Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron, crowned Olympic champions on Monday.

Read also Olympic Games 2022: Eteri Tutberidze, the sulphurous Russian skating coach

Former skater, Eteri Tutberidze, 47, has revolutionized the discipline among women. Under his guidance, his students were the first to perform quadruple jumps in competition. With, however, a price to pay. The students, all minors when they entered this “champions factory”, are pushed to work harder, regardless of injuries.

Evgenia Medvedeva, double world champion (2016 and 2017), can no longer jump without excruciating back pain. Some skaters have also taken many years to get out of anorexia, a condition, according to them, to continue doing quadruple jumps.

“From what is said, the training there is relatively abusive. With us, it would be impossible; in Canada [Gabriella Papadakis et Guillaume Cizeron s’entraînent à Montréal]we are governed by very strict rules ”recalls Romain Haguenauer.

Triplet dream

Eteri Tutberidze is also famous for not leaving much room for feelings. Only the trophies count: as soon as a skater no longer obtains good results, she is sidelined in favor of younger than her. No student has remained in Sambo-70 past their majority.

Olympic ice dancing champion in 2002 with Gwendal Peizerat, Marina Anissina refutes the accusations against Eteri Tutberidze. The two women skated together in Moscow schools. “If you’re not demanding and sometimes a little hard, it’s difficult to have such good resultsadvances the former skater, now a consultant on Eurosport. Eteri loves his students. She is demanding on the ice but very close to them off it. »

Eteri Tutberdize, who said to himself on Saturday “absolutely certain that Valieva was clean and innocent”, can dream of an Olympic treble, Thursday, February 17, at the end of the free programme. Besides Kamila Valieva, the coach can count on two other of her nuggets: Anna Chtcherbakova and Alexandra Troussova.

A hat-trick from the Tutberidze school, however, would not be likely to dispel the doubts that continue to weigh on Russian sport, eight years after the institutionalized doping scandal that broke out after the Sochi Games.

Our selection of articles on the 2022 Beijing Olympics

source site-28