“Would be a criminal act”
Expert thinks Valiyeva’s strategy is an excuse
02/15/2022 11:47 am
Kamila Valiewa may keep her Olympic gold medal, and the Russian figure skater may also compete in singles – although she tested positive for a doping agent before the Olympic Games in Beijing. The case continues to cause trouble.
Doping expert Fritz Sörgel considers the alleged accidental ingestion of the heart drug trimetazidine through a shared glass grandfather to be an excuse for figure skater Kamila Valiyeva. “The amount for a positive doping test cannot get into the body through saliva on a glass rim,” said the pharmacologist of the German Press Agency.
Sörgel recommends examining not only the B sample from the 15-year-old team Olympic champion, but also the negative tests that have been carried out since then. “You should do it scientifically optimally. The latest analytical methods increase the detection possibility compared to those in a doping laboratory by a factor of five,” explained the scientist. If the statements made by the European champion from Russia turned out to be incorrect and she had received the drug from her training environment, it would be “a criminal act and inconsiderate against a young person”.
The young skating star is the only witness to the theory of contamination with her grandfather’s drug. “Apparently everything is being tried not to bring state doping back into play,” said Sörgel. Russia’s Olympic ban for doping cover-up and data manipulation expires at the end of the year. Valiyeva’s lawyers presented “reasons that cast doubt on their guilt,” said Denis Oswald, chairman of the International Olympic Committee’s Disciplinary Committee, in Beijing. This was part of Valiyewa’s defense in the summary proceedings of the International Court of Arbitration for Sports over her admission to women’s singles.
According to Russian media, her lawyer in the Cas hearing pointed out that the exceptional athlete could have drunk from a glass that her grandfather had previously used. The banned substance could then have entered her body through saliva transmission. Valiyeva tested positive for trimetazidine, which stimulates blood flow to the heart by widening blood vessels, at the Russian championships in late December. However, the finding only became known during the Winter Games in Beijing.