Russian banned, ending 2022 Olympic skate drama
In a stunning rebuke of Russia’s notorious doping system, the Court of Arbitration for Sport banned Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva on Monday for four years and said her 2022 Olympic results were disqualified, ending an unprecedented and protracted drama that has dragged on for nearly two years.
The CAS ruling means that the International Skating Union, the worldwide governing body for figure skating, will now be called upon to decide the results of the 2022 team figure skating competition based on the arbitration panel’s decision. If Valieva’s results are disallowed and/or the Russian team is disqualified, the ISU is likely to move the United States up to the gold medal, followed by Japan with silver and fourth-place finisher Canada with bronze.
“It is now imperative for the ISU to effectuate the technical decision of her disqualification from the Games and redistribute the medals to the right winners,” U.S. Anti-Doping Agency CEO Travis Tygart told USA TODAY Sports.
In response to the CAS decision, Tygart said: “It’s the right outcome and let’s hope the clean athletes who competed in the Games can finally have some joy and satisfaction for their long wait for some justice despite their moment never being replaced. At the same time, our hearts hurt for yet another Russian athlete who the system failed, this one a young 15-year old girl. The system has to fix itself.”
The decision came 720 days after Valieva, then 15, led Russia to the gold medal in the Olympic team event in Beijing on Feb. 7, 2022. But the next day, the medal ceremony was canceled and the results were thrown into disarray after Valieva was found to have tested positive for the banned heart medication trimetazidine six weeks earlier at the Russian championships.
Once the ISU rules on who wins the medals, how the skaters will receive their medals is anyone’s guess. One idea that has been floated is to honor the medal winners with a ceremony at the Paris Olympic Games this summer.
There certainly is no playbook for this. Never before has an Olympic medal ceremony been canceled, so never before have athletes had to wait what will actually end up being more than two years to receive their medals.