In 2019, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) banned Russia from all major international sporting events for four years, due to the discovery of a major state-sponsored doping operation. However, as a concession to athletes who weren’t ensnared in the scheme, WADA allowed individual athletes to take part in international events—but not under Russia’s tricolor flag.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) subsequently reduced the ban to two years. In the last two Games, Russian athletes have competed under the banner of the “Russian Olympic Committee” (ROC). It follows on from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) banning Russia from the 2018 Winter Olympics, but allowing individual Russian athletes to compete as “Olympic Athletes from Russia.”
At the time, this was justified as a way to avoid punishing those clean Russian athletes for the sins of those involved in the doping. But now evidence suggests that Russian interests found it acceptable to dope a minor. Namely, Kamila Valieva, the 15-year-old figure skater whose electrifying performance in the team figure skating competition now has a giant asterisk next to it. She tested positive for a banned heart medication that could potentially cost the ROC its gold medal. Given that an innocent explanation for this is highly unlikely, it’s time to throw Russia out of the Olympic movement, and international sport entirely—even if it means the nation’s clean athletes get caught in the crossfire.
Certain Olympic athletes inevitably become international darlings. It initially appeared that Valieva had joined the likes of Olga Korbut, Nadia Comaneci, Mary Lou Retton, Michelle Kwan, Simone Biles, and many other elite young women during the team figure skating competition. She became the first woman to land two quadruple jumps in Olympic history; it was enough to get the ROC a gold medal, with the United States getting silver and Japan getting bronze.
The medal ceremony was slated for the next night, Tuesday, Feb. 8. However, on Tuesday morning, the IOC announced that the ceremony would be delayed, due to an unspecified issue that required “legal consultation” with the International Skating Union. The following day, Olympic news site Inside the Games dropped a bombshell: The issue involved potential doping by a Russian athlete. Later on Wednesday, Inside the Games offered an even bigger bombshell: The issue was a drug test taken by Valieva before the Olympics.
By Friday morning, it had been confirmed—Valieva had indeed tested positive for a banned substance. Specifically, trimetazidine, a heart medication that’s been on WADA’s list of banned substances since 2014 in competition and since 2015 outside of competition.
Ostensibly, the only way Valieva would have the drug in her system is if she had a prescription for it. But Sadiya Khan, a cardiologist at Northwestern Medicine, told NBC’s Today that it’s highly unlikely anyone that young would ever get a prescription for that drug.
As the story unfolded, it emerged that this failed test was based on a sample taken two months before the Olympics. More details from The New York Times:
In December, Valieva, 15, had submitted a routine doping sample that a laboratory later determined included a banned drug. The results of the test were not returned for more than six weeks, though, and delivered only after Valieva had competed at the Beijing Olympics. This created an embarrassing spectacle in which a skater from a nation serving a multiyear doping ban for running a huge, state-sponsored doping scheme at a previous Olympics was allowed to compete on her sport’s biggest stage, only to be suspended the next day.
According to the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA), the sample was collected on Christmas Day during the Russian skating championships, and sent to Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm. Why Sweden? RUSADA is suspended from WADA as a result of the state-sponsored doping scandal, so all Russian doping samples have to be sent to WADA-accredited labs outside the country.
However, due to what RUSADA blames on a COVID-19 outbreak at Karolinska University Hospital, it took over a month for Valieva’s results to be returned. This was a breach of antidoping protocols, which require results to be returned within 20 calendar days. Most countries press for expedited results within 48 to 72 hours.
All of this led United States Anti-Doping Agency CEO Travis Tygart—also known as the man who brought down Lance Armstrong—to call BS on his Russian counterparts.
“It’s either an intentional delay to allow her to compete or gross incompetence and has resulted in mayhem and Russia again tainting a major competition,” Tygart said in a phone interview.
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Tygart, the U.S. antidoping chief, said the crisis would have been easily avoided if Russia’s antidoping agency acted with the urgency required. “Our staff stays up night and day checking to see what’s been reported,” Tygart said. “We call the lab if we need to.”
Valieva’s profile, and the looming Olympics, should only have increased that sense of urgency for Russia, he said. “If it’s a Wheaties box athlete like she is, you’re going to make sure everything is buttoned up before they go,” Tygart added.
When the best-case scenario is “gross incompetence,” to put it mildly that’s a bad sign.
As if it had a choice, RUSADA suspended Valieva soon after the results were announced, but reinstated her the next day. That didn’t sit well with WADA, the IOC, or the International Skating Union, who have announced they want Valieva booted from the Games.
CAS is due to hold an expedited hearing on the matter on Sunday, with a decision to be issued on Monday. It would come just before the women’s short program, where Valieva would be the prohibitive favorite for gold—if she is allowed to compete.
Complicating matters, however, is that since Valieva is younger than 16, she is considered a “protected person” under the World Anti-Doping Code. It’s possible she could get off with as little as a reprimand, and at worst a two-year ban. Normally, a doping violation carries up to a four-year ban.
The focus would then rightly turn to the adults around Valieva. Indeed, there have already been calls for those in Valieva’s circle to face lengthy bans, most notably from retired figure skaters Katarina Witt and Adam Rippon.
But banning Valieva’s entourage isn’t nearly enough. Given that there is almost no good-faith reason for that drug to be in her system, that this happened is evidence that the culture of the Russian sporting community is incompatible with that of the international sporting community. If the environment in Russia finds this was even remotely acceptable, then the only way to make this right is to ban Russia from all international competition, indefinitely. Even if clean athletes get ensnared, the prospect that anyone would find it acceptable to dope a 15-year-old girl is something that cannot be tolerated.
The closest parallel I can draw is to the Penn State child sex abuse scandal. You may recall that after the discovery that Penn State officials had covered up a pattern of child molestation by Jerry Sandusky that went back to at least 1994, the NCAA initially banned Penn State from postseason play for four years—a penalty reduced to only two years in 2014. Even though it had the effect of punishing current players for something that happened when they were in middle school, the prospect that Penn State put winning football games above the safety of children was such that it would have been derelict for the NCAA not to act.
This is no different. Any concern about punishing clean Russian athletes is more than outweighed by the need to come down hard on a country that finds it acceptable to dope minors. Now that we know this is apparently the case, Russia must be kicked out of the Olympic movement, and international sport, until it shows that it has cleaned house.
Saturday, Feb 12, 2022 · 6:42:39 PM +00:00 · Darrell Lucus
Elfing noted in the comments that Valieva’s coach, Eteri Tutberidze, has a reputation for being one of the dirtiest coaches in figure skating. Per this Twitter thread, several of her charges have suffered debilitating injuries that ended their careers at early ages, or at least forced them to stop actively competing at early ages.
Monday, Feb 14, 2022 · 3:34:48 PM +00:00
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Jessica Sutherland
The CAS announced Monday that Valieva’s suspension should be lifted, offering a quite unusual path forward as investigations continue.
The Washington Post:
Valieva’s case, including whether the Russian Olympic Committee will receive the gold medal it won in the team figure skating event, remains ongoing within the IOC’s legal process. But CAS essentially said Valieva should be permitted to skate for now in case that process either exonerates or lightly punishes her.
“The panel was very concerned that if a provisional suspension was imposed on the athlete, and later at the end of the day, at the completion of all procedures, she would not be sanctioned or would have a very low sanction, the provisional sanction would have caused serious damage,” CAS Director General Matthieu Reeb said at a news conference.
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The IOC took the extraordinary step of shelving any medal ceremony, outstanding or potential, that includes Valieva. If Valieva finishes in the top three Tuesday night, as she is heavily favored to do, the IOC will not hold a medal ceremony in Beijing and will instead organize “dignified medal ceremonies once the case of Ms. Valieva has been concluded,” it said in a statement. The IOC also requested the International Skating Union to allow 25 skaters into the final round of the women’s event rather than the customary 24.