Russian figure skater of Tatar nationality Kamila Valieva pictured at the Beijing Olympics on February 17, 2023.
Lausanne – The International Skating Union (ISU) will also appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in the doping case of Russian figure skater Kamila Valiyeva. It was announced a day after the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), which also disagrees with the decision of the Russian tribunal not to punish Valieva for doping at last year's national championship. WADA demands a four-year ban for the 16-year-old competitor, the ISU wants to leave the decision on the punishment to arbitration.
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“The ISU is of the opinion that all young athletes must be protected from doping. Exempting them from sanctions cannot achieve such protection,” the ISU said in a statement.
According to the union, the punishment for Valiyeva is to apply from December 25, 2021, when she tested positive for trimetazidine at the Russian championship. The ISU is also calling for her disqualification from all competitions from that date. The arbitration is thus to decide the final order of the team competition in figure skating at last year's Olympic Games in Beijing.
In it, Valiyeva helped the Russian team to victory. The information about her doping finding was published only afterwards. The International Olympic Committee postponed the awarding of medals due to the case, but allowed Valieva to enter the women's competition. In it, she was the main favorite, but under the pressure of the circumstances, she was unable to perform and took fourth place.
The case was investigated by the Russian Anti-Doping Agency, which acknowledged that Valiyeva violated the rules, but did not find that she had done so intentionally or inadvertently. The young figure skater defended herself by claiming that the banned substance got into her body by accident from her grandfather's medicine.
Representatives of the USA, Japan and Canada finished behind the Russian figure skaters in Beijing, who can advance to the bronze medal.
