Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva, whose positive doping test as a 15-year-old dominated headlines at the 2022 Winter Olympics, has been banned from the sport for four years by the Court of Arbitration.
The ruling also means that all results obtained by Valieva after her failed test on December 25, 2021 have now been erased from the record books.
However, Cas did not immediately rob the Russians, led by Valieva, of their gold medal in the team event. In a statement explaining his ruling, Cas said power “does not fall within the scope of these arbitration proceedings and will have to be investigated by the sports organizations involved.”
However, there seems little doubt that the International Skating Union will now strip the Russian team of their medal and lift the American team to gold.
Valieva became the first woman to complete a quadruple jump in the Olympic team event, as the Russian Olympic Committee won gold. But a day later it emerged that she had tested positive for trimetazidine (TMZ), intended to prevent angina pectoris, at the Russian national championships in December 2021, weeks before the Games.
The delay in testing her sample on Christmas Day was caused by a Covid outbreak among employees at a doping laboratory in Sweden. But when the news was announced, it sparked a media frenzy that dominated the Winter Olympics.
While in Beijing, Valieva’s legal team claimed that her positive drug test may have come from a contaminated glass of water that contained traces of her grandfather’s heart medication. After days of legal wrangling, Cas eventually allowed her to continue competing, but under the heaviest pressure, she fell twice in the individual figure skating event and finished fourth.
This was followed by almost two years of legal proceedings before Cas finally came to a decision on Monday.
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In a statement, Cas said: “Ms Valieva did not dispute liability in the sense that she accepted that, due to the presence of a TMZ in her sample, she had committed an anti-doping rule violation (ADRV). It was therefore a matter for the Cas panel to consider what sanctions, if any, should be imposed on Ms Valieva.
“After carefully considering all the evidence presented, the Cas Panel concluded that, on the balance of probabilities and based on the evidence before the Panel, Ms. Valieva was unable to establish that she had the ADRV had not committed intentionally.
“Accordingly, a period of ineligibility of four years was imposed by the panel as it was found that there was no scope for the exercise of discretion to reduce the period of ineligibility.
“The Cas Panel also ordered the disqualification of all competitive results achieved by Ms. Valieva as of December 25, 2021, with all consequential consequences (including loss of titles, awards, medals, winnings, prizes and appearance fees).
“The consequences related to Ms. Valieva’s retroactive disqualification from past events, including the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, were not within the scope of this arbitration proceeding and will need to be investigated by the sports organizations involved.”
The verdict was welcomed by US Anti-Doping Agency CEO Travis Tygart, who said: “Today’s decision in the Valieva case is long overdue. It is imperative that the ISU immediately completes the technical processes necessary to reallocate the medals accordingly.
“As we know, Russia has hijacked the Games since 2014, when it was caught red-handed running a state-sponsored doping program that robbed clean athletes around the world. Here again, those charged with protecting the Games and the athletes have allowed Russia to jeopardize the well-being of its own athletes while depriving clean athletes and fans of fair, honest and authentic Olympic competition.
“Now we must demand that the approach to this entire tragedy is reviewed to ensure that all necessary reforms are made to ensure that no athlete ever has to endure this again.”