The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) will begin hearing the doping case of Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva on Tuesday. This case has caused controversy in the sport and has raised concerns about Russia’s anti-doping system. Despite testing positive for a banned substance, Valieva helped the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) win gold in the team event at the 2022 Beijing Games. However, justice has been delayed, and Valieva’s competitors are still waiting for a resolution. Travis Tygart, CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), expressed his disappointment, stating that the athletes involved, including Valieva and the other teams, have not had their medal ceremony and are left with empty medal boxes.
Valieva made history at the Olympics by becoming the first woman to complete a quadruple jump in the team event at the age of 15. However, it was later revealed that she had tested positive for trimetazidine, a substance used to prevent angina, at the Russian national championships just weeks before the Olympics. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) allowed Valieva to participate in the women’s single event but withheld the allocation of medals for the team event until her case was resolved.
The Russian anti-doping agency (RUSADA) disciplinary commission determined that Valieva had committed a violation but found her to be “not at fault or negligent.” As a result, she was not sanctioned, but her results from the national championships were voided. RUSADA, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), and the International Skating Union (ISU) are all challenging this decision at CAS.
RUSADA is seeking “appropriate consequences” for Valieva’s offense, while WADA is pushing for a four-year ban that would include voiding her results from Beijing, effectively stripping the ROC of their team event gold medal. The ISU also supports a ban for Valieva. The parties involved have requested a non-public hearing, and CAS has denied a request from the U.S. team to have an observer present on their behalf.
Vincent Zhou, a U.S. skater, criticized the anti-doping system, stating that it is failing athletes. He called for transparency in the hearing process to restore trust in the global anti-doping system. Valieva and representatives from RUSADA will appear via video link for the CAS hearing, as they will not be traveling to Lausanne.
CAS has not provided a timeline for when a ruling will be announced, but experts believe it could take months. The outcome of this case will have significant implications for Valieva and the sport of figure skating as a whole.
