Opinion: Valieva among the victims of a saga that highlights the necessity of clean sport
Some thoughts on an unfortunate situation that has gone on for far too long.
After nearly two years, what’s another few days (at least) of drama in the ongoing doping saga involving Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva?
Well, for a group of clean athletes including several Canadians, it is the difference between having and not having something they’ve worked their entire lives for: a medal from the Olympic Games.
On Monday, Valieva was banned from the sport until December 2025 following a positive test for trimetazidine in December 2021, and was retroactively disqualified from the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics — where the then-15-year-old star led the Russian Olympic Committee to a gold medal in the team event. After the news of that previous failed test broke in Beijing, medals were not handed out for the team event, and still have not been awarded due to a nearly two-year legal battle that resulted in Monday’s ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport — which may yet be appealed further by Valieva’s legal team.
On Tuesday the situation got even more confusing, with the International Skating Union announcing the new order of medallists following the disqualification. The United States was rightly named Olympic champions, moving up from second, with Japan climbing from third to silver medal position. It was expected that Canada would move from fourth to third, but the ISU named Russia the new bronze medallist in a move that was both shocking and incorrect according to their own rulebook.
The ISU removed the 20 points that Valieva earned for Russia, leaving them in third with 54 points, one more than Canada’s 53. If all of the other athletes in the women’s singles portions of the event moved up one spot due to Valieva’s disqualification — as appears to be the process according to Rule 353(4)(a) of the ISU’s rulebook — they’d receive two more points each, and Canada would overtake Russia into third place with 55 points. There have also been calls to reduce Russia to zero points and disqualify them completely.
The Canadian Olympic Committee responded quickly following the ISU’s announcement, and shared that they are in discussion with Skate Canada as the organization explores its options to appeal the ISU’s medal order. The International Olympic Committee has been silent since the ruling, and has the final say on the reallocation of medals.
Quite frankly, the ISU had nearly two years to figure this out, and to still seemingly get it wrong is embarrassing. They must either correct this decision, or explain the reasoning behind it — two things they had not yet done as of the time of publication on Wednesday.
The entire chain of events from before the December 2021 drug test to the present has been haphazard, and a reminder of the importance of clean sport.
Valieva, still just 17, should also receive some sympathy as a victim and the central figure of a situation that should have never taken place. She was let down by the people around her.
Her defence was that the trimetazidine was in her system due to contamination with a glass of water that contained traces of medicine that her grandfather takes. The Court of Arbitration for Sport found no such evidence of this claim, hence the ban, while common sense corroborates the court’s ruling.
We may never know if Valieva was aware that she was taking an illegal performance-enhancing substance, given that she was just 15 years old at the time of her December 2021 drug test and could have been taking what was given to her. Any athlete who competes at the Games is responsible for what’s in their system, however, and the ban is justified if she can’t prove that she was unaware.
Regardless of her intention, access to trimetazidine almost certainly came from coaches or the Russian Olympic Federation — serial offenders who will continue to cheat for as long as the International Olympic Committee declines to take it seriously. Trust was broken somewhere along the timeline, by Valieva and those responsible for her — as a rising superstar athlete, but also as a 15-year-old human being. While guilty of having a performance-enhancing substance in her system, she is also a victim of this situation.
It’s hard to forget the troubling images after the singles competition in Beijing, where a clearly distraught Valieva was scolded by her coach, Eteri Tutberidze, after a disastrous skate in which she fell and made several uncharacteristic mistakes, ultimately finishing fourth. IOC President Thomas Bach said himself that Tutberidze’s reaction “was chilling to see.”
Tutberidze is a controversial figure in the skating world. She has trained many of the best figure skaters in the world in recent years, and come under fire for reportedly abusive coaching methods that have resulted in some of her former athletes retiring from the sport during their teenage years after dealing with chronic injuries and lasting eating disorders. There has been no direct evidence yet that Tutberidze was involved in Valieva’s use of trimetazidine, and the coach has insisted that Valieva was clean and doesn’t know how it ended up in her system, but she runs a tight ship and would likely have known of any wrongdoing — assuming it was intentional.
If that is the case, Tutberidze and anyone else involved should face lifelong bans from the sport. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), which led the push to disqualify Valieva from Beijing 2022 and have her banned, said in a statement on Monday that “the doping of children is unforgivable”, and that “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.”
WADA also encourages governments to pass legislation so the doping of minors is a criminal offence, something that seems farfetched in Russia given their recent history with athletes doping.
Look no further than the name of the team Valieva was representing in Beijing — the Russian Olympic Committee, not Russia — for a reminder of an issue that won’t go away if the International Olympic Committee doesn’t show a bit more courage in dealing with matters involving athletes using performance-enhancing drugs.
It is clear that performative punishments in the decade since the state-sponsored doping program at Sochi 2014, like changing the team name, have been largely ineffective. The Russian anthem could not be played in Beijing, but athletes wearing white, blue, and red were prominent and left with 32 medals, which could now be reduced to 31 for that very same offence.
Russian athletes won’t be allowed to compete under their flag in Paris this summer anyway due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine — instead having to compete as neutral athletes — but if doping issues persist, the IOC must send a stronger message that doping will not be tolerated. A blanket ban of all Russian athletes would not be fair for those who are clean, but something must be done somehow.
In the end, this situation surrounding the figure skating team medals has produced very few winners. The United States, Japan, and hopefully Canada will receive their medals two years later, but the moment will be reduced from what it could have been if done properly in Beijing two years ago — the kind of moment that those athletes grew up dreaming of.
Clean sport and those fighting for it will have also come out on top if Russia is lowered off the podium entirely. Sports being drug-free, especially at the Olympic and Paralympic level, is a necessity to ensure an even playing field for all.
The Olympic motto is Faster, Higher, Stronger. Its athlete oath, recited at the start of every Olympic Games, includes a promise to reach those heights “without doping and without drugs, in the true spirit of sportsmanship, for the glory of sport and the honor of our teams.”
Sport is a beautiful thing. It has the power to entertain, inspire, and bring people together like few other things can. The fight to eradicate those who tarnish it will not slow down, and it will not be lost.
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