The basis for the athlete’s dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion was a pos­i­tive dop­ing test for trimetazi­dine, which Valie­va passed in 2021. How­ev­er, the ath­lete was not removed from par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Olympics. The same Court of Arbi­tra­tion for Sport made the deci­sion on admis­sion, cit­ing WADA rules requir­ing a 20-day notice of the sam­ple (and these rules were vio­lat­ed).

How­ev­er, despite the admis­sion and tri­umphant per­for­mance of the Russ­ian skaters (they deserved gold), Kami­la Valieva’s prob­lems did not end. The fact is that the Court of Arbi­tra­tion for Sport allowed the speech, but did not reject the con­sid­er­a­tion of the dop­ing case, pre­fer­ring to post­pone it to a lat­er date.

And so it hap­pened: the scan­dal erupt­ed dur­ing the Olympics, but gained momen­tum after the end of the event. Valieva’s case was han­dled by 2 inde­pen­dent orga­ni­za­tions: the Court of Arbi­tra­tion for Sport and RUSADA, a Russ­ian orga­ni­za­tion deal­ing with dop­ing issues.

Kami­la Valie­va claimed that she did not use dop­ing on pur­pose, her grand­moth­er used the med­i­cine, which result­ed in “domes­tic con­t­a­m­i­na­tion.” This is con­firmed by sub­se­quent dop­ing tests, which showed neg­a­tive results.

Back in Sep­tem­ber 2022, RUSADA found the ath­lete not guilty, but WADA protest­ed this result and demand­ed that the court dis­qual­i­fy Valie­va for 4 years, deprive Russ­ian ath­letes of gold at the Olympics, and Valie­va of all awards received in Europe and Rus­sia (for a cer­tain peri­od of time).

Sur­pris­ing­ly, even before the inves­ti­ga­tion was com­plet­ed, Valieva’s result at the Russ­ian Cham­pi­onship was can­celed, and her gold went to Alexan­dra Truso­va. Now, hav­ing received a guilty ver­dict from the arbi­tra­tion court, it is like­ly that Valie­va will be deprived of oth­er awards.

But what will hap­pen to the Russ­ian team’s Olympic gold is a big ques­tion. The deci­sion will be made by the Inter­na­tion­al Skat­ing Union, not the sports arbi­tra­tion court.