Team USA Shocked That Russia’s Kamila Valieva Can Skate on Despite Failed Drug Test

The young Russian figure skater at the center of an Olympic doping row was cleared today to carry on competing at the Beijing Olympics despite a failed drugs test. But she will not receive any medals she might win in China until her doping case is over—which could take months.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) cited “exceptional circumstances” in ruling out a proposed ban on 15-year-old Kamila Valieva, saying that to bar her from competing in Beijing “would cause her irreparable harm.”

The ruling was slammed by U.S. Olympic chiefs, who complained that Russia had once again been allowed to get away with doping. And the International Olympic Committee, which had pressed for a ban, said it would hold back any medals won by the skater, including last week’s team gold.

Valieva became the first woman to land quad jumps in Olympic competition as she led Russia to victory in the team event last Monday, setting herself up as the clear favorite for individual gold.

On Tuesday, as the six skaters were preparing to collect their medals under the banner of the Russian Olympic Committee—Russia itself is banned because of systematic state-sponsored doping—a testing lab in Stockholm informed the IOC that Valieva had tested positive for a banned angina drug in a sample taken six weeks earlier.

Under the rules of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) that infraction brought an automatic suspension, but Russian anti-doping chiefs decided on Wednesday to allow her to compete anyway.

WADA, the IOC, and the International Skating Union jointly appealed against the Russian decision. Their arguments were heard remotely by a three-strong CAS arbitration panel, which ruled today that the Russians has been within their rights to lift the automatic suspension.

“We are disappointed by the messages this sends,” said Sarah Hirshland, chief executive of the USOPC. “This appears to be another chapter in the systemic and pervasive disregard for clean sport by Russia.”

Two factors appeared to sway the three-person CAS panel which heard the case for Valieva to be barred from further competition in Beijing: the unexplained delay in testing her sample and her status—because of her age—as a “protected person” under WADA rules who should not be publicly named and shamed for failed tests.

Briefing reporters in Beijing, CAS Secretary General Matthieu Reeb said the 44-day delay in testing Valieva’s anti-doping sample was “extremely unfortunate” for both Beijing Games organizers and the athlete herself. “In other words, we will not have this case if these anti-doping test procedures would have been completed in one week or 10 days as it is generally the case,” he said.

“The panel considered that preventing the athlete from competing at the Olympic Games would cause her irreparable harm in these circumstances,” Reeb added.

Valieva will now take to the ice in tomorrow’s short program as favorite to lead a Russian medals sweep in the individual event—and with the gaze of the world upon her slender shoulders. The concluding free program is on Thursday.

Barely 30 minutes after the CAS ruling was announced, the 15-year-old arrived to train at a practice rink near the Capital Indoor Stadium where the figure skating competition is being held. At least 100 international reporters, photographers, and camera crew were waiting for her.

The Stockholm lab had found that Valieva’s sample, taken during the Russian national championships in St Petersburg on Dec. 25, contained the banned heart drug trimetazidine, which can be used to boost blood flow and endurance. The CAS arbitrators made no ruling on whether she took the drug knowingly but ruled that a Russian disciplinary panel had been acting within its rights when it cleared her to skate last Wednesday.

Reacting to the CAS decision, the IOC accepted it had no choice but to let Valieva compete, but warned her case had not yet been properly examined and she might yet face some sort of punishment.

Accordingly, it had decided to delay the team event medal ceremony until after the Games, when the investigation was completed. The flower and medal ceremonies for the individual event will also be called off, the IOC said, if Valieva wins a podium place. The IOC has also asked the ISU to allow 25 skaters through into Thursday’s free skate if Valieva is among the 24 who qualify from tomorrow’s short program.

The World Anti-Doping Agency appeared to be as angry as the IOC about the CAS setback. The agency complained that the CAS ruling had gone against the WADA Code, which does not allow for “mandatory provisional suspensions” to be lifted even for “protected persons.”

WADA also laid the blame for the delayed testing of Valieva’s sample on Russian anti-doping officials, who had failed to flag the sample as a priority sample when it was sent to the Stockholm lab back in December.

And it announced that WADA’s “independent Intelligence and Investigations Department’” would directly investigate Valieva’s “support personnel’”—taken to mean the coaches at her super-successful Moscow team, including Eteri Tutberidze, who has coached a succession of young world and Olympic champions. Under the WADA Code, any individual found to have supplied a banned substance to an athlete under the age of 16 faces a lifetime ban from the sport.

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