US to Be Awarded Olympic Gold Medal After Russian Athlete Is Retroactively Disqualified
Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva was disqualified from the 2022 Olympics on Monday, almost two years after the teenager’s doping case caused turmoil at the Beijing Games.
The verdict from the Court of Arbitration for Sport means the Russians are set to be stripped of the Olympic title in the team figure skating event. The way is now clear for the U.S. to be awarded the gold medal instead.
The International Olympic Committee decided not to have a medal ceremony in Beijing where the then-15-year-old Valieva was the star skater hours before her positive test for a banned heart medicine was revealed.
CAS said a panel of three judges upheld appeals led by the World Anti-Doping Agency, which asked the court to disqualify Valieva from the Olympics and ban her. A Russian sports tribunal had cleared her of any blame because she was a minor.
The court banned Valieva for four years, until Dec. 25, 2025 — about seven weeks before the next Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.
The IOC, which did not immediately comment on Monday, is responsible for reallocating medals, and its executive board is next scheduled to meet in March.
The Russians won decisively in the team event but will drop in the standings without Valieva’s points. Behind the U.S., Japan took bronze and Canada placed fourth.
“We now anticipate the day when we can wholeheartedly celebrate these athletes, along with their peers from around the world,” the U.S. Olympic body’s CEO, Sarah Hirshland, said in a Monday statement.
The likely new Olympic champions are Evan Bates, Karen Chen, Nathan Chen, Madison Chock, Zachary Donohue, Brandon Frazier, Madison Hubbell, Alexa Knierim and Vincent Zhou.
The International Skating Union said it welcomed the ruling and would comment Tuesday on the consequences. Those include amending the results of the two Olympic competitions Valieva took part in.
In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said of the ruling, “Of course, we don’t agree with this. From my point of view, of course, it’s politicized.”
Valieva’s legal team said it was reviewing the CAS decision before deciding whether to appeal to the Swiss supreme court, lawyer Andrea Pinna said in a statement. Pinna led the skater’s defense at the appeal hearings in September and November.
Valieva’s lawyers argued she was contaminated by traces of the trimetazidine medication they said her grandfather used. She also was taking two oxygen-boosting substances that are not banned.
“Having carefully considered all the evidence put before it,” the court said in a statement, “the CAS panel concluded that Ms. Valieva was not able to establish, on the balance of probabilities and on the basis of the evidence before the panel, that she had not committed the [doping violation] intentionally.”
Valieva was able to continue to skate at the Olympics after rulings by a Russian tribunal and a separate CAS panel in Beijing did not hold her responsible because she was a minor.
The intense scrutiny on Valieva led to an error-filled skate in the individual event, where she was favored for gold but dropped to fourth place.
World anti-doping rules require investigations of an entourage when an athlete 16 or younger tests positive. Both the Russian anti-doping body and WADA were expected to look into the case, but neither has published any findings and there is no indication anyone else is facing charges.
“The doping of children is unforgivable,” the Montreal-based WADA said Monday. “Doctors, coaches or other support personnel who are found to have provided performance-enhancing substances to minors should face the full force of the world anti-doping code.”
The appeal case came to CAS to challenge a Russian anti-doping tribunal verdict in late 2022 that Valieva was not at fault. That ruling suggested disqualifying her only from the national championships and letting her keep her Olympic results and gold medal.
WADA asked CAS to impose a four-year ban and to disqualify Valieva from the Olympics. The ISU requested a two-year ban and disqualification.
“WADA took this appeal to CAS in the interests of fairness for athletes and clean sport and we believe that has been delivered through this decision,” the agency said.
Valieva, who turns 18 in April, has not competed internationally since the Beijing Olympics.
Four days after the closing ceremony, Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and five days after that, the ISU banned Russian skaters from its events. That ban is still in place.
American ice dancer Evan Bates said this weekend at the national championships that getting a team medal with partner Madison Chock will be meaningful to them.
“We’re the only two athletes from the Beijing team that are still competing — every single one of the rest of us has moved on,” Bates said. “Two years is too long that it’s taken for this decision to be made. We’re just looking forward to getting some closure.”
The Western Journal has reviewed this Associated Press story and may have altered it prior to publication to ensure that it meets our editorial standards.
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