GENEVA (Reuters) – The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) is set to reconvene the hearing of figure skater Kamila Valieva’s doping case on Thursday. The case had caused controversy during last year’s Beijing Olympics and raised concerns about Russia’s anti-doping system. The Lausanne-based court had initially started hearing the case in September but had to pause the proceedings in order to gather additional documentation. The closed-door hearing is scheduled to conclude on Friday and will involve presenting remaining evidence and the parties’ closing submissions.
Valieva had tested positive for the banned substance trimetazidine, which is used to prevent angina, at the Russian national championships in December 2021 when she was 15. Her team has claimed that the positive test could have been due to a mix-up with her grandfather’s heart medication. The positive test result, however, was only revealed a day after she helped the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) win the team gold at the Beijing Winter Olympics in February 2022.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) permitted Valieva to participate in the women’s single event despite her positive test, but stated that medals for the team event would not be awarded until her case was resolved. The delay in medal allocation has sparked frustration among competitors, with Vincent Zhou, a member of the silver medal-winning U.S. team, criticizing the global anti-doping system for “failing athletes”.
The Russian anti-doping agency (RUSADA) disciplinary commission concluded that Valieva had committed a violation for which she bore “no fault or negligence”. She was not penalized, but her results from the national championships on the day she tested positive were nullified. RUSADA, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), and the International Skating Union (ISU) are all contesting this decision at the highest court of sports.
RUSADA has stated its intention to seek “appropriate consequences” for the violation, while ISU is seeking a suspension. WADA is pushing for a four-year ban that would entail voiding Valieva’s results from the Beijing Games, effectively denying ROC their team event gold medal. (Reporting by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber; Editing by Nick Macfie)
