Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva, who made headlines at the 2022 Winter Olympics when she tested positive for doping at age 15, has been banned for four years by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
The ruling also means that all results achieved by Valieva after failing the exam on December 25, 2021, are now removed from the record books.
However, Kass did not immediately deprive Valiyeva’s Russian team of its gold medal in the team competition. In a statement explaining his ruling, Cass said the powers “are outside the scope of this arbitration proceeding and must be reviewed by the relevant sports organizations”.
There is no doubt, however, that the International Skating Union will now strip Russia of its medal and let the U.S. take the gold.
Valyeva became the first woman to land a quadruple jump in an Olympic team event, and the Russian Olympic Committee won the gold medal. But a day later, at the Russian national championships in December 2021, weeks before the Olympics, she tested positive for trimetazidine (TMZ), a drug designed to prevent angina.
The delay in testing her samples on Christmas Day was due to a coronavirus outbreak among staff at a Swedish doping laboratory. But as soon as the news was announced, it triggered a media storm that dominated the Winter Olympics.
While in Beijing, Valieva’s legal team claimed that her positive drug test may have come from a glass of contaminated water that contained traces of her grandfather’s heart medication. After days of legal wrangling, Kass was eventually allowed to continue competing, but under the most severe pressure, she fell twice in the individual figure skating event, finishing fourth.
Then, after nearly two years of legal proceedings, Cass finally made his decision on Monday.
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Cass said in the statement: “Ms. Valieva did not contest liability as she accepted that she had violated the Anti-Doping Rules (ADRV) due to the presence of TMZ in her sample. Therefore, the CAS panel needed to consider the response What sanctions, if any, did Ms. Valieva impose?
“After carefully considering all the evidence before it, the CAS panel concluded that Ms Valieva was unable to prove on a balance of probabilities and on the basis of the evidence before the panel that she did not knowingly commit ADRV.
It added: “Consequently, having determined that there was no scope to exercise its discretion to shorten the ban, the panel imposed a four-year ban.
“The Cas panel also ordered that Ms. Valieva be disqualified from all competition results achieved from December 25, 2021, and bear all consequences arising therefrom (including forfeiture of any titles, awards, medals, profits, bonuses and appearance fees).
“The consequences of Ms. Valieva’s retroactive disqualification from past competitions, including the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, are outside the scope of this arbitration procedure and must be reviewed by the relevant sports organizations.”
