MOSCOW, February 7 Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Wednesday published the motivational part of the case of Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva.
The document, consisting of 129 pages, describes in detail all the details of the proceedings, which explain why the athlete received a four-year disqualification.
At the end of January, CAS suspended Valieva for four years for violating anti-doping rules and invalidated her results in competitions from December 25, 2021.
Initially, it was indicated that the motivational part may not be published, however, in all likelihood, the parties agreed on its publication. According to the document, at the CAS hearing, Valieva put forward three versions of how the banned substance trimetazidine entered her body: a poor-quality food additive, sabotage due to poor security organization at the Russian Championship in St. Petersburg, and a strawberry dessert that her grandfather prepared on a cutting board , where he crushed his medicines.
The latter version became Valieva's main line of defense, but the CAS panel decided «that this explanation was not supported by any concrete evidence, and that the athlete could not prove that she did not commit an anti-doping violation intentionally.»
In addition, Valieva’s grandfather, Gennady Solovyov, failed to provide the court with evidence of the purchase of trimetazidine, bank card statements, and doctor’s referrals.
Despite the fact that Valieva was only 15 years old at the time of the anti-doping rule violation, the court treated her with the utmost severity. CAS motivated this by the fact that “the athlete was unable to prove that she committed an anti-doping rule violation unintentionally.”
«Because the 'no substantial fault or negligence' test was not met, there was no basis under the rules for treating the athlete as anything other than an adult,» the release states. WADA added that Valieva was “surprisingly careless” in the matter of protection from doping and demanded that the period of the skater’s disqualification be counted from the day the verdict was announced.
The document also publishes data from the Federal Medical and Biological Agency (FMBA), which indicates that Valieva took about 60 different approved medications and supplements in 2020-2021. Among them are, for example, hypoxene and L-carnitine, as well as the non-prohibited anabolic ecdysterone. According to sports doctor Valentin Belyavsky, ecdysterone is a natural anabolic steroid that is used to improve performance. “They found it and found it, no big deal,” the doctor concluded.
It is important to note that during the investigation against Valieva, which began on February 8, 2022, the investigative department of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) sent official requests to the Russian Figure Skating Federation, FMBA and the Sports Training Center (SSP). The athlete's mother Alsou Valieva, coaches Eteri Tutberidze, Sergei Dudakov, choreographer Daniil Gleikhengauz, sports doctors Philip Shvedsky, Yuri Shumakov and others were interviewed. During the interviews, no information was found to support staff use or prescription of trimetazidine or other prohibited substances. The court report says that the investigative department of RUSADA and the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, during the investigation into the case of figure skater Valieva, did not find any violations of anti-doping rules around the coaching staff of Eteri Tutberidze.
Valieva passed a positive doping test on December 25, 2021, on the day of the free program of the Russian Championship. This became known on February 8, 2022 — the day after the end of the team tournament at the 2022 Olympics in Beijing, where the Russian team with Valieva won.
On January 30, the International Skating Union (ISU) approved a new top three medalists in the team tournament at the Beijing Olympics. After Valieva’s results were annulled, the Russian team dropped from first place to third, gold went to the Americans, silver to the Japanese, and the Canadians remained fourth. The former head of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), Richard Pound, said that the ISU should recalculate the points of the team tournament and give bronze to the Canadian team. The Russian Olympic Committee, in response to the CAS verdict in the Valieva case, stated that “war has been declared on Russian sport.” The Russian Figure Skating Federation reported that it strongly disagrees with the decision.
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