The Arbitral Tribunal of Sport confirmed on Monday the lifting of the provisional suspension of the teenager, decided on Wednesday by the Russian anti-doping agency (Rusada), on the eve of the beginning of the individual test for which the young athlete is The favorite grandissime.
Le Monde with AFP
Positive tested at the end of December to a forbidden substance, the young Russian skater Kamila Valieva, 15, was authorized, Monday, February 14, to pursue his Beijing Olympics, with the individual test Tuesday, of which she is great favorite. The arbitral tribunal of the sport (heap), without deciding on the merits of the case, confirmed the lifting of the provisional suspension of the adolescent, decided on Wednesday by the Russian anti-doping agency (Rusada).
“Prevent the athlete from competing to the Olympics would cause him irreparable harm”, observed the three arbitrators, even as his young age (under 16) involves specific rules of evidence and lightened sanctions. The young skater prodigy can continue to defend his chances of Olympic gold in individual, from his first season at seniors, even if nothing prevents that it be sanctioned in several months and that she sees his results canceled , including for the Olympics.
The Valieva case started at the beginning of last week, when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced that the medal competition ceremony of the team competition, won Monday by Russia which contributes under neutral flag, was postponed for “legal” reasons. The Russian press then evoked a positive anti-doping control of Kamila Valieva, but it was not until a communiqué Friday from the ITA, the body responsible for the Olympic Anti-Doping Program, to have confirmation.
Huge Storm
The Russian teenager, pure produced from the champion plant of the Severe Eteri Tutberidze in Moscow, has only twenty-four hours to reconcerate on the most important competition of his nascent career, after several days of ‘A huge storm. Because it was necessary to wait on Tuesday, after the team test won by the Russians, so that Valieva is notifying the positive result of an anti-doping control made by Rusada on December 25 in St. Petersburg, during the Russian Championships.
This “late notification”, by the Stockholm laboratory responsible for the analysis, “prevented the athlete from reacting”, even though it was for nothing, explained to the Matthew Reeb press, The Director General of the TAS. “If the procedures had been settled in ten days, as usual, I would not be there,” he said. The incriminated product is trimetazidin, a substance used to treat the angina of chest and prohibited by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) since 2014, because it would promote blood circulation.
In the immediate future, this announcement delayed the ceremony of the medals of the teams, which will “probably not” place before the end of the Olympics, announced Monday morning the spokesman for the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Especially threw a huge doubt on the continuation of the Olympic destiny of Valieva: temporarily suspended by Rusada at first, VALIEVA obtained the next day the lifting of this measure, for reasons remained mysterious. This led the IOC, but also the WADA and the International Skating Federation, to seize the pile of an appeal against this decision.
Since the formalization of its positive control Friday, VALIEVA continued to practice conscientiously day after day, sometimes on the Olympic ice, sometimes on the training rink. The short women program is scheduled for Tuesday from 18 hours, local time (11 hours, French time) and VALIEVA, become the first skatest person to succeed from quadruples jumps in the Olympic history during the team competition there is A week, must skate at 9:52 pm, local time (14:52, French time).
Although Kamila VALIEVA had been suspended, Russian skating and Tutberidze School retained arguments since his main competitors are also his training partners – Anna Shcherbakova, the title world champion, and Alexandra Trusova, world medalist and European, 17 years old. The Valieva case, when it will be examined on the merits, could also revive the suspicion surrounding Russian sport, to the reputation already well tainted in doping by the scandal of the OJ 2014, which took place in Sochi.