2022 Olympics: Team skating podium to be established by ISU after Valieva's suspension

The event was won in Beijing by the Russians ahead of the Americans, Japanese and Canadians, but the final podium is not yet known: the decision of the Court of Arbitration for Sport implies the annulment of all of Kamila's individual results Valieva, who will not be able to receive an Olympic medal, but it does not automatically lead to the disqualification of her team. “The IOC welcomes the fact that the sentence of the Court of Arbitration for Sport”, which suspended the 17-year-old champion for four years and retroactively disqualified her from December 25, 2021 “brings clarity in this matter”, a a spokesperson for the International Olympic Committee told AFP on Tuesday. The skaters entered in the team event of the 2022 Beijing Olympics “can finally receive their medals, which they have waited so long for,” added the same source.

American skaters are crowned Olympic champions in the team event of the 2022 Olympic Games in Beijing, ahead of the Japanese and the Russians, the International Skating Federation (ISU) decided on Tuesday, deducting Kamila Valieva's points from the Russians after her suspension for doping. After almost two years of imbroglio linked to the positive doping test of the young Russian prodigy, carried out at the end of 2021 but the result of which was established in the middle of the Olympics, the International Olympic Committee will be able to organize the medal ceremony. Initially declared winners, the Russians lost two places after the points won by Valieva were withdrawn.

However, if the IOC will “contact the national Olympic committees concerned to organize a medal ceremony worthy of the name”, it will do so “in accordance with the classification which must be established by the International Skating Federation” (ISU) , further clarified this spokesperson. For its part, the ISU also “welcomed the decision of the CAS” on Monday in a first press release, recalling its attachment to the fight against doping, and promised a second announcement this Tuesday on the subject of “the implications” of this sanction. .

Its regulations provide for collective disqualification in the event of a positive doping test of a member of a team during the competition, but this is not exactly the case in the Valieva case. The young prodigy, then aged 15, had tested positive several weeks before the Olympic competition, on December 25, 2021 by the Russian anti-doping agency (Rusada) for trimetazidine, a substance banned since 2014 on the grounds that it improves blood circulation, during the Russian championships which she had won.

But Rusada being suspended by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the champion's sample was analyzed by a laboratory approved by WADA in Stockholm. Disorganized by the Covid-19 pandemic, the laboratory took seven weeks to determine the result, which fell in the middle of the Olympics and the day after the team skating event. Kamila Valieva, then one of the great announced stars of the Games, performed on this occasion the first women's quadruple jump in Olympic history.