Figure skater Kamila Valieva is suspended for four years

Kamila Valieva was just 15 years old when her positive doping test for the angina drug trimetazidine was revealed in the middle of the Beijing Olympics two years ago. She was also one of the world’s top figure skaters.

Last January, the Russian anti-doping agency Rusada’s disciplinary committee ruled that an anti-doping rule violation had occurred, but that Kamila Valieva was not responsible.

Her results from the competition when she tested positive were deleted, but otherwise she was not penalized. She has not been able to compete internationally anyway, as Russian athletes are banned due to the war in Ukraine.

Both RusadaWada and the International Skating Federation appealed the decision to release her to the Court of Arbitration for Sport Cas.

An explanation that Kamila Valieva has previously given is that she drank from the same glass as her grandfather, who takes the medicine she had in her test.

On Monday, Cas announced its decision, banning the Russian, who is now 17, for four years, retroactive to December 25, 2021.

This means that she will be free to compete a few weeks before the next Olympics in Milan and Cortina in 2026.

In doping cases is it is up to accused athletes to present evidence in cases where they claim they should not be held responsible for a positive test. Cas writes that the same rules apply to “protected persons”, which Kamila Valieva is because of her age, and that she could not prove that she did not deliberately break the rules.

The reason why the news about her test came during the ongoing Olympics, between the team competition and the individual competition, was a delay at the anti-doping laboratory at Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm. According to the World Anti-Doping Agency Wada, it was a staff shortage due to that winter’s wave of covid-19 that was the reason why the sample taken at Christmas was only analyzed in February.

A panel from The Court of Arbitration for Sport Cas ruled that not being allowed to continue competing at the Olympics could cause the Russian “irreparable harm”, ruling that she could go ahead despite a positive test for trimetazidine normally leading to an outright suspension while the case is investigated.

One reason given by the panel was that due to the delayed analysis response she had not been given a chance to defend herself. The panel considered that sports organizations cannot make higher demands on athletes than the institutions themselves can live up to.

She clapped through in the free individual program and made several mistakes, burst into tears afterwards and missed out on a medal.

At the same time took The International Olympic Committee (IOC) made a completely different decision than Cas, canceling the medal ceremony in the team competition, which the Russian team had won ahead of the United States and Japan. It is the first time that an Olympic medal ceremony has been cancelled, and the athletes have still not received their medals.

Cas has now decided that all of Kamila Valieva’s results from 25 December 2021 will be cancelled. What this means for the medals in the team competition will be up to the IOC and the International Skating Federation to decide.

Kamila Valieva’s age means that she belongs to a protected category in Wada’s regulations. Among other things, this means that an investigation of the staff surrounding the athlete must automatically be initiated in the event of a positive test, but what it has led to is unclear.

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