Russian with ‘I don’t do drugs’ shirt tests positive

About the same time that the Olympic anthem was being played instead of the Russian anthem for gold-medal figure skater Alina Zagitova, the reasons were being illustrated once again. Another Russian athlete had failed a drug test. This time it was a female bobsledder who recently filmed an ad wearing a sweatshirt that said in English: “I don’t do drugs.” And whose national federation chief had his 2014 bobsled medal stripped as part of the Sochi doping scandal.

Alexander Zubkov, president of the Russian bobsled federation and convicted doper, confirmed that pilot Nadezhda Sergeeva had tested positive for trimetazdine, a heart medication that can alter the body’s metabolism and is on the World Anti-Doping Agency’s banned list. It is fast acting, so it is only prohibited in urine tests collected in-competition.

That makes four doping cases at the Pyeongchang Olympics, two of which have been Russians.

The concern for Russia, of course, is what that means for Sunday. The International Olympic Committee had technically barred Russia from these Winter Games after the doping mess in Sochi, then allowed 168 athletes who passed a (supposedly) comprehensive vetting process to compete wearing neutral uniforms as Olympic Athletes from Russia (OAR).

BOYCOTT: The United States biathlon team has announced it will boycott the final IBU World Cup meet in Russia next month.

The U.S. athletes released a statement Saturday saying that the International Biathlon Union’s recent decision to move forward with the March 22-25 event in Tyumen, Russia— despite a recent doping scandal in that country — is “completely unacceptable.”

The statement says, “In support of clean sport and our own physical safety, we cannot in good conscience participate.”