Another Olympics, another Russian doper. Russia has a state-sponsored doping program for their athletes, and over the years, Russian athletes have been stripped of Olympic medals and international championships because the athletes tested positive for steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs. The International Olympic Committee banned Russian athletes from competing as punishment, but all that means is that Russians aren’t competing under the Russian flag. They’re called ROC (Russian Olympic Committee) and reportedly, the Russian athletes in competition are not given any kind of benefit of the doubt. Except when there’s a positive doping test for a 15-year-old wunderkind ice skater, apparently. Russian teen Kamila Valieva has gotten a lot of press already during the Olympics, and she helped Team ROC take gold in the team event this week. But as it turns out, she tested positive for a banned substance in December.
Russian teenage figure skater Kamila Valieva failed a drug test taken in December before the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, the International Testing Agency (ITA) confirmed Friday. Fifteen-year-old Valieva, a breakout star of the Games who helped the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) take home gold in Monday’s figure skating team event, was allowed to compete despite testing positive for the banned heart drug trimetazidine, which is commonly used to treat people with angina, the ITA said in a statement.
The failed test only came to light during the Winter Olympics, and it remains unclear if the drug test controversy will see the medal revoked. The scandal continues to delay the awarding of medals to all three teams, silver for Team USA and bronze for Team Japan.
“The decision on the results of the ROC team in the Team Figure Skating event can be taken … only after a final decision on the full merits of the case has been taken,” the ITA said. The case will be heard by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), with a decision needed before the figure skating star’s next event — the women’s singles short program — on Tuesday, in which she is favorite to take gold.
In that hearing, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) will challenge a decision by the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) to lift a provisional suspension on the skater, according to the ITA. Responding to the controversy, the ROC said Valieva had “repeatedly passed doping tests” while already in Beijing, adding that it is taking measures to keep Valieva’s “honestly won” gold.
The ITA, which leads the anti-doping program for the Beijing Winter Olympics, said Valieva’s drug sample was taken at the Russian Figure Skating Championships in Saint Petersburg on December 25. However, it took until February 8 for a laboratory in Sweden to report it had detected a banned substance — one day after the ROC won gold at the team event in Beijing.
What a complete catastrophe for the Olympics, for ice skating, for the medalists, and for Russia. First of all, who is giving a 15-year-old kid performance-enhancing angina drugs? Second of all, she should have never been able to compete. I feel sorry for Kamila and I understand that she was truly just taking what she was given, but yeah, she should have never been able to compete. This is also a complete failure of the anti-doping agencies to test and inform in a timely manner, so it’s a huge bureaucratic mess too. Ugh. So what happens now? Will ROC’s gold medal be yanked? Will Kamila be banned from the sport? What a mess.
Photos courtesy of Getty.
Russia, oops, I mean the ROC, just shouldn’t be allowed to compete, until some benchmarks are met and sustained. What a farce.
The Russians are reporting that the drug apparently isn’t performance enhancing.
Lol
They get the equivalent of a slap on the wrist, so they continue.
I don’t follow tennis closely, but wasn’t there a tennis player who was also taking something for a “heart condition”, which was found to improve her endurance/breathing, and she was banned for a few years? Maria Sharpova, Sharpolova…??? Something like that….?
Kaiser, help me out here!
Sharapova was suspended from tennis when she tested positive for a performance enhancing substance in 2016. She was tested in Australia by the international anti-doping agency and it was entirely handled by the ITF/WTA. Russia’s tennis federation didn’t get involved at all.
It was Maria Sharapova, back in 2016 she tested positive for a banned substance (ironically also one used to treat heart conditions.)
I want to believe that Valieva didn’t know what she was taking – she’s only 15 and probably just did whatever her coach said – but the Russians have such a history of doing this kind of thing, who TF knows?
ETA: I just saw that Kaiser posted, ignore me lol.
Thanks, Kaiser and LadyMTL!
The drug was meldonium, and the issue there was that it was recently banned when she got popped for it. That said, usually the drug enforcement agency (WADA in this case, I think) gives people 1-2 years notice before it is fully banned. I think she, along with other athletes banned for it, claimed ignorance.
Anyway, grey area or not it’s in the spirit of cheating.
I feel bad for the other non-Russian athletes who are doing everything right but are continually let down by the cowards at the IOC and prevented from getting the medals and recognition they truly deserve.
If you all have not seen Icarus the documentary, do that post haste. It is an unbelievably wild story of Russian doping — I was riveted.
Icarus was AMAZING. I really hope the Russian doctor who took part in it is living his best life. The IOC is a joke. Russia should have been banned. From watching that doc I don’t think there is a stigma in Russia so people like this figure skater don’t care and will continue to dope. I don’t feel sorry for her. She took them. Nobody says sure stick this needle in me, it can’t be bad. Yeah at 15 you’re not that stupid.
Seconded, Icarus is fascinating.
I am so sad for Kamila because she’s a wonderful skater and never tested positive for any other drug before. If anything people should be pointing fingers at Eteri, her coach.
her coach, and the team physician. yet more abuse of young female athletes. she is an amazing skater and this is going to harm her while the powerful men who did it will probably not have to face any consequences.
Yes to this. She is a wonderful skater and she is so young, she is a child. I think the adults around her should be accountable for this.
All of this in this thread from @chloe and replies, she is a child who was been victimized, used and exploited by the Russian sports system.
Yes, these poor young athletes are shuttled thru the system, used up, and discarded. I feel nothing but pity for her. She will be scapegoated and the powers that be will escape unscathed as usual. The Olympics are madly corrupt.
Yet an American female tested positive for marijuana which is not a performance enhancing drug and was immediately pulled from the olympics. You can’t have it both ways Olympics….
This!
I agree. Either treat everyone the same or don’t do it at all.
A black American woman! Justice for Sha’Carri!
Substances do not have to be necessarily performance enhancing to be banned. Marijuana and cannibidoids are banned in-competition by the World Anti Doping Agency. Can an argument be made that it should not be banned? Sure. But it is still on the banned list. Given the extreme personal circumstances that athlete was experiencing, was her use of the drug rational? Absolutely. But it was still banned, the US athlete knew it was banned and she faced the consequences.
I’m all for med or rec cannabis use, but it is banned and she chose to use it. That’s entirely on her.
I just came here to shout “YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS”. Such BS that they keep getting away with this crap and Sha’carri got totally disqualified immediately.
I am against banning athletes for weed, but there is chatter out there (true or not, I don’t know) that THC can be a masking agent for other performance-enhancing drugs.
Oh, that’s interesting! I was working myself into a twist trying to figure out how weed could be remotely helpful for competitive athletes.
In theory a track athlete or swimmer that had issues with false starts could probably figure out some kind of THC dose that would be enough to make them less twitchy at the starting line but not negatively impact their overall performance
Skier Rob Rebagliata won a gold medal in men’s slalom in ’98 and was busted for weed in his system resulting in him losing his medal, which was restored a few days later.
A person mentioned that they had smoked half a joint of what Rob had, and couldn’t get off the couch for three hours. He said that if Rob won a world speed contest on that stuff, he deserved the medal.
It says the sample was taken in December. But was she clean when she competed last week?
I feel bad for her if she didn’t know what she was being given. In which case, I wouldn’t want to see her banned from the sport but possibly suspended.
Do we know she was clean? How long does this drug last in the system? Was she given it again *since* the blood test, figuring she’d already been tested, and wouldn’t be again before competition? We don’t know any of this.
Of course she’s not clean. The Russians have cheated until they got caught and still keep on. The IOC is so corrupt.
The article literally said that she was tested multiple times in Beijing and was always clean. So, yes, we do know she is clean now.
@Tessa No, we don’t know that. Lance Armstrong never failed a drug test and was never a clean athlete. Kamila is a doper.
@ Nic919, I agree with you. Putin and the entire country of those that have power, or at the direction of Putin will lie, cheat, steal, hack, and kill anyone who they deem are worthy of the atrocities that they carry out. Putin is not a man of character or of morals. Putin wants the power over everyone! Russia has been doping their athletes for years, and unfortunately did so when it wasn’t tested as well. I wouldn’t step foot in Russia! Though I would love to go to St. Petersburg!! It looks stunning and I think that the people of Russia are lovely!!
The entire Russian system is corrupt and so she should have been suspended at the time of the test and since it was December it would have included the Olympics.
The IOC has been a mess with their bs ROC system which did not punish Russia for the massive cheating operation in Sochi and elsewhere.
It’s too bad that this skater is being caught in this because she’s been landing quads and can skate well. But if the banned substance is a beta blocker and gives her more “courage” than what would normally happen, then she’s skating at an advantage compared to the others.
But WOULD she have been able to land the quads like this W/OUT the drugs giving her that “boost” of stamina/strength? Maybe, maybe not. She may’ve had the skill to do one, maybe two at the beginning of her program, but midway, and at the end? Most likely not.
Under normal circumstances, if an athlete tests positive for a PED, the positive test is reported to the authorities, which then typically results in a 2+ year ban. That 2+ year ban happens even if the athlete on different days tests negative.
However, this is Russia, and Russian shenanigans. They wanted their 15 year old super star to be able to compete at the Olympics, and thus they did not report the positive test, nor did they suspend the 15 year old.
You all need to watch the Oscar winning documentary Icarus on Netflix. It’s absolute fantastic.
It details the Russian doping scandal and how complex the doping scam was and how corrupt the officials were. It basically proved that nearly every Russian athlete that has competed at the last 15 Olympics were doping and they all tested negative because the Russian scientist in the documentary had created a complex system to help the athletes avoid detection. The lengths that Russian govement officials went to facilitating the doping and ensuring that it wasn’t detected is insane! After watching that and seeing all the evidence put forth, I have zero faith that her or any of her fellow Russian Olympians are clean and aren’t cheating the system.
I did see Icarus and it’s why I think Russia needs to be banned 100% from the Olympics. That system of cheating is too complex for the dumb ROC work around that does nothing.
Tessa, her being clean now is irrelevent. They do way more reps and run throughs bc of these drugs that allow them to acheive this level of consistancy they have. Their training numbers are unheard of in skating.
She may have be ‘clean’ now, but she was using a banned substance, and as such, she could be suspended for two years if her “b” test is found positive (a retest of the remaining sample from December.) Banned substances are banned during competition and outside of competition as well. Athletes cannot be permitted to take performance enhancing drugs weeks or months before competition and then stop just before their event.
Every athlete who competes under the ROC should be subjected to mandatory urine and blood screenings, both random and scheduled. All coaches and medical teams involved in the doping should be fined and forever banned from sports.
When Russia’s massive doping operation was discovered years ago, it should have resulted in a hard ban. Just taking away their flag and their anthem was a pretty toothless punishment. There was no real motivation for them to change their culture of doping (which goes wayyyy further back than 2014).
The doctor who ran the doping program was banned for 3 years, he is now the ROC doctor in Beijing- he is with the athletes right now!
It is a joke.
They are going to try and use an exemption based on her age which is shameful.
If anything, it should be considered WORSE, doping a 15 yr old CHILD. She’d probably was told to just take it, not what it was.
Maybe she didn’t know but I dated a Russian who was a professional athlete. He was trained up as a kid and very aware of what was going on. His coach bought him a prostitute around the age of 13. He changed and ultimately had a solid career as he grew up but from his stories I doubt there are that many truly naive athletes.
I feel bad mostly for the pressure all these athletes face and I’m sure this girl is plenty talented without drugs. It’s just sad all around.
When they are this young and basically pulled into a system, it’s not their fault. The coach and all the others who “manage” these girls should be thrown out first. They won’t though, but I think when the athlete is underage the one’s in charge of their training and physical health definitely need to hold a big piece of the blame. The Russians are crazy and experimenting on these kids. Oddly if the gossip defense is to be believed they may have actually hit on something. This drug isn’t a performance enhancing drug, and for the life of me I can’t imagine why they would give it to a 15 year old unless she had heart issues. They may just be doing this looking for drugs that they think may help, but don’t really do that. That’s just gross and child abuse.
I am a huge fan of this girl but the rules are the rules and they must be applied evenly. I feel sorry for her since she is just a kid and they must hold the adults responsible. If Shacarrie got banned they she must be banned too.
I feel sorry for all the competitors who have to compete against doping athletes. Hopes, dreams, talent and hard work, all for naught. I don’t view Valieva’s quads in a good light anymore. Is it a wonder why Russia’s girls are the only one jumping quads?
I agree Truthiness, it isn’t fair. I do wonder about her teammates that have the same coach their are rumors and have been rumors in the past.
The siping is probably one reason the Russian girls are landing quads but not the only. Their coach is vicious. I used to compete and had some friends who went onto the international circuit, I did not, and there were stories even then about some a Russian coaches.
This coach has figured out a technique for teaching these girls quads but as soon as they grow even a bit it doesn’t work any more. They need to have the exact right balance of height/weight/muscle/ etc in order to land them. If you look at the coaches track record the last several girls she has brought to the Olympics have all retired with injuries. She is a dangerous coach but she gets results so people keep using her.
If anyone has a child who wants to get into competitive figure skating please make sure you google the coach, ask around the rink, and watch them carefully. They are what we revolve around when we are training and I cannot stress enough the mind games some of them can play. I was very lucky and had a coach who treated me like her daughter and was a rock for me. Some of my friends were not that lucky and it was scary to see how they would be pitted against each other to get so called better performances.
It’s a real possibility that all the girls working under this coach have been given this substance and Kamila was the only one caught out by a test. The doctors know the doses and the necessary amount given by weight and how quickly it will leave the system before a test.
@kiera- the fact that these girls so quickly retire is terrifying.
@ Truthiness, I agree!! There are probably people in the past that have competed against Russian athletes that were stripped of winning due to Russia always using ways to cheat. It’s truly a tragedy on those who lost so many years ago and how it affected their view as to their worth.
BothSidesNow: As I mentioned earlier, you should watch the Netflix Academy award winning documentary, Icarus. You wouldn’t believe it, but they discovered that upwards of 85% of Russians Olympic athletes were doping at the Sochi Olympics, Pyeongchang, etc., and at over a dozen Olympics before that. So basically that means that there are countless athletes from other countries who were robbed of medals because of the Russians widespread cheating.
Russian women aren’t the only women who have landed quads, though.
I believe there is a Japanese woman who can land quads.
Her coach is a well-known abuser in the sport unfortunately. I feel terrible for her.
Sample was taken on Christmas day but took a while to be processed.
The drug she tested for is a medication that enhances stamina and allows athletes to train longer and recover quicker, which is why it is banned.
Previous athletes caught using it have all been banned for various periods of time.
They clearly tried to get away using her age- she is younger than 16 and the rules for testing are different for her.
Now the Russian government have publicly told her to go, compete and win the gold for her country… the whole thing is such a mess.
Ultimately I feel so sorry for this child! Her career and legacy are now ruined.
She clearly had no agency over what her coaches were giving her, and the sad thing is she probably would have won without ‘help’ as she is so incredibly talented.
Allowing her to compete now would be an utter farce.
There is no medical proof the drug (trimetazidine-if the stories are correct) increases stamina. Trimetazidine mildly increases blood flow to the heart which helps against angina and may improve overall heart function in some people although the studies are inconclusive. In addition those studies were not done on 15 year old girls with a small weight either. It’s honestly very dangerous. In some people it also has a nasty side effect of making you drowsy and dizzy, which I can’t imagine would be good for a figure skater. It’s not even approved for use in the USA to anyone, although the US has similar type drugs.
Now the drug was banned originally as a stimulant but then reclassified as a hormone and metabolic modulator, which is closer to what it is. It makes more sense to be used by athletes who need to perform for long periods of time, i.e. long distance runners, swimmers, etc. as those athletes need more blood flow to their heart to perform, although the research really doesn’t show it would help much there either. It’s a theory though. I think it’s really crazy experimentation to do this on these young girls. If all this is true they should remove her from the Olympics, but they should first punish the Coach, physician – unless he has a reasonable explanation on why this 15 year old needed this drug, and all others in charge more than they penalize her.
I would refer anyone who is interested in learning more about the context in which this is happening to sources such as The Skating Lesson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZ_BUN2-2-E&t=26s
The toxic environment of the Sambo-70 group has been an open secret for a long time, and has been enabled by many organizations.
I will add that Valieva should be seen as a victim in this.
I agree that she’s a victim. She’s only fifteen, probably has little control over how she trains, her diet, the meds she takes. And it’s clear there is no one around to protect her, because she’s being used as a pawn to win Olympic glory by her coach, the Russian skating federation, and her country.
I also think, unfortunately, that she should be banned. She has to suffer the same consequences as other athletes who have tested positive. It just really sucks that this is going to ruin her career and tarnish all of her accomplishments.
I wish there was a way to still have the Olympics without the focus on what country an athlete comes from. Just individuals competing against each other from across the world. Countries are too involved with the prestige of winning. The doping in Russia needs to stop, but the US covering for Nassar is worse in my opinion. I just wish there was a way to keep the governments of these countries out of the games. That way, you would just need to qualify and wouldn’t have to change your nationality or anything. The athletes train really hard and should be able to compete, but the politics behind it is gross.
Obviously the Nassar situation was way worse- but you can’t really cancel international competition.
Athletes spend their lives training for the honour of representing their country. They shouldn’t be penalised because of national programs.
I feel they should target the doctors and coaches- in the case of the Russians, the ROC doctor has previously been banned 3 years.
In the case of Valieva, her coach is known for running down skaters to get results and spitting them after 3/4 years. She should be banned.
The Russians have been caught doping since their “ban” and it’s really unbelievable. Apparently their punishment has not been enough to deter them from cheating. This skater needs to go, and the team medal for figure skating needs to be stripped. She’s a doper, period. The other skaters are probably on the same stuff. Russia should be ashamed but they’re probably not.
I feel really sad for this girl – no matter what happens with the decision, she’s a pawn. People who know more than me about figure skating have written for years about the corruption and damage the Russian skating programs have done to young women.
Supposedly their coach puts pressure on them to keep a very low body mass without building muscle or bone strength, and I don’t believe for a moment that every single calorie and medication wasn’t closely monitored. If this medication is truly for her heart, why would it show up in December and not now?
It’s not a coincidence that we usually do not see female figure skaters from Russia returning in multiple Olympics – they are just fodder for the machine.
I read about this yesterday, that the Russian girls (and they are young girls) are able to do these incredible jumps because they’re essentially pre pubescent and no one is worried about their long term health. The girl that got gold at the last Olympics is all of 19/20, and she’s no longer skating because the bones in her feet are wrecked and she gained weight and muscle mass that makes these jumps impossible.
Yes. It used to be that their competitive female figure skaters could be be around for multiple competition cycles. Think of Irina Slutskya. Then here comes the Russian figure skating federation with their new model of churning out top female singles figure skaters which involves grinding young teenage girls into the ground so that they are here today dazzling everyone with their incredible jumps and artistry, but then gone tomorrow because their bodies are being destroyed in the process. It is terrible.
She won’t be banned from the sport. There are rules for athletes who are underaged. Of course, one of those rules is that her name should be kept secret, but ooops, never mind about that. Most likely, she’ll get a reprimand and any penalties will go to the adults.
Right now, the ruling will be about whether she can compete in the individual event. The team event problem will come later – it’s too bad the other teams won’t have a chance to enjoy a medal ceremony.
My question is (for anyone or the authorities), if underaged are exempt, why bother testing them at all? A lot of athletes who compete at a high level are teens.
Don’t bring logic into this! LOL. Of course the same doping rules apply to everyone competing at the professional senior level. If this “CHILD1!!” isn’t old enough to be tested for doping, let alone handle the consequences of her actions, she should be sent home and her results should be voided.
“BUT SHE’S JUST A KID” is not an excuse at this level.
The rule is that the release if the name is not mandatory, as it is for adults. Release of personal information is to be weighed against the need for public knowledge. So, kid in junior competition, don’t release. You just won an Olympic gold medal? People need to know. Also, her name was released by the Russian media and became public that way. Also, they had to say why the medals in the team event were not being awarded. It was because of a failed drug test. Of a minor, so we can’t say who (which we normally would). There was one minor on the winning team. So hiding the name was meaningless.
Russians always cheat, they just don’t always get caught. I’m still shocked that Maria Sharapova has been welcomed back into polite society after her bullshit. It’s shocking that she still has huge endorsement deals with Porsche and others.
This poor girl. I feel so bad for her. Her training regimen is so strict that the Eteri girls aren’t even allowed to drink water before they compete. They are the Karolyis of gymnastics on steriods. No one suspects Eteri of abuse because she is young-looking and pretty, but she has cold, dead eyes. She teaches her students terrible technique. Those “quads” the girls are jumping are rotated practically 360 degrees on the ice before they launch into the air, which torques their backs and places tremendous strain on their joints. Watch a slow mo video of the Eteri girls jumps and you will see it. They also aren’t fully rotated when they land, which ought to be dinged for under-rotation, but never is. The Tutberitze factory relies on the girls having extremely low body weights to do the quads, and delayed puberty.
We’re right back to the same era from gymnastics in the late 1980s-1990s, when 14-16 year old gymnasts who were 4 ft 6 and 70 pounds were winning medals. Women’s skating is not a women’s sport anymore. It’s a child’s sport, made up of disposable teenagers. We’ve had 2 cycles of Olympics before this one where the Eteri girls were too injured to compete for more than a year or 2, with more and more juniors waiting in the wings.
I really hope they disqualify Kamila. That’s honestly the best thing that could happen to her. If she competes and wins, her win is tainted. There’s a good chance the medal will be removed later. She will likely be seen as a villian outside of Russia, and if the medal is taken back later, she could likely be villanized inside Russia as well. A non-entity of a child is an easy scapegoat. If she goes home now, at least the rest of the world will see her as the victim she is, and she has a chance of coming back next cycle.
It sounds awful to say, but Kamila is nothing but a pawn. Her leaving now and a hard Russian ban might clean up the sport in Russia, because there are 10-13 year olds training quads right now to be ready for the next cycle. I can’t imagine the abuse these girls are experiencing. If it was hard for the gymnastics survivors of Larry Nassar to come forward in the USA, how can these Russian girls come forward in their dictatorship? We’ve seen what happened to that tennis player in China.
Banning Kamila now might save the lives, bodies, futures of hundreds of girls in Russia. She might even see it herself that way in the future. How has her health and her own future been compromised by her training system? I’d love to see her come back stronger in 2026.
There’s no winning path for this girl. She loses either way. She competes and wins, she loses because everyone outside of Russia will think she’s a cheater (I don’t know how important the western market is for skaters anymore, but it used to be very, very important). She competes and loses, she will likely get vitriol from home because she couldn’t handle the pressure. She’s sent home, and then she has lost what she has worked so hard to achieve.
That’s so much weight to put on the shoulders of a 15 year old girl.
Well said.
Yes! I wrote something similar above before seeing your comment.
But very well stated!
I completely agree. This is so reminiscent of the 70s and 80s Soviet and Romanian gymnasts who were also told to not even drink water. The truly repugnant thing is that these girls’ bodies will be damaged for the rest of their lives. Medvedeva (silver medal in last Olympics) can’t even twist her back in one direction now! At like 20 years old! The age limit needs be to raised to 17 so that post-pubescent women compete. Raising the age limit has helped so much in gymnastics. It’s common now to see women in their mid to late 20s compete in women’s gymnastics.
I don’t want to happen to Kamila what happened to Elena Mukhina in gymnastics. She was a world champion Soviet gymnast who was overtrained and injured, and she fell on her head when her coach demanded that she do a tumbling pass. She was paralyzed from the neck down. She was then pretty much forgotten, and no one really talked about her inside or outside of Russia. She died in 2006. I only bring her up for context. A young champion was injured from likely abuse and overtraining, and was cast aside. This is before the internet era, but this is the system of the Soviets and now the Russians. Use these girls, then cast them aside if they break or they falter. I also feel for the girls who didn’t make it. In a system like Eteri’s, you gather as many talented children around as you can, then winnow them out until the strongest are left. So it’s not just kamila who suffers. They cast aside numerous girls to get each champion, girls who are also starved, abused, and doped. That system needs to stop now.
I hope that the media leans hard on Tara and Johnny and the NBC announcers. If they continue to gush about this girl, then they will be enabling child abuse. Gushing about Eteri’s girls right now will age as well as gushing about the Karolyis has aged. This girl is a victim of a dangerous and abusive system that needs to be dismantled and rebuilt.
I just googled Elena Mukhina.
How tragic.
@lanne I also thought of Elena Mukhina. She had no agency, even when she knew disaster was looming. What I found so chilling was that she said when she was lying on the floor, knowing she had just been catastrophically injured & her first thought was relief that she didn’t have to go to the Olympics.
Tara Lipinski, one of the NBC commentators, has first hand knowledge of how figure skating is a brutal sport on young bodies. She had hip surgery while still very young.
Thanks @lanne and @Keira and others for your comments. I had no idea this was what was happening. I just thought “wow these girls are really good.” Very informative and interesting (and sad.)
So did Nathan Chen and Alysa Liu.
4 years ago in February, Tara Lipinski (at least one hip replacement) opined in the NYT, and she was rounded on by nearly every commenter, including me. She wrote, “Compare the United States with Russia, where skaters come up under a system designed to encourage them to up the technical ante at a very young age.” Her op-ed piece was stunning in its dissonance, and at odds with the reality of her own, broken before its time body.
Looks like they put US Covid Testers in charge of the Olympics. How on earth does it take from Dec 25 to Feb 8 to run a freaking drug panel? I feel terribly for that Kamila, she’s a child, of course she just took whatever they gave her. What a mess, but they need to be decisive and not let it drag on like Novak in AU.
I hope the ISU and WADA appeal to have her provisionally suspended is successful. Kamila is so talented but she doesn’t deserve to skate. I hope the ROC is unhappy with Eteri right now because it’s all her fault
If she tested positive in Dec, then the drug was in her system for competitions that qualified her for the Olympics. Just because she is clean now shouldn’t matter.
Time Magazine reports that the delay in testing and announcing the results of Valieva’s sample was due to staff shortages at the Swedish testing lab caused by COVID – increased staff illnesses + absences coupled with increased COVID safety protocols.