SPORT: 2022 OLYMPIC GAMES
Tested positive for drugs the Russian athlete Valieva to continue the Beijing Olympics.

The Russ­ian fig­ure skater Kami­la Valie­va can par­tic­i­pate in the wom­en’s Olympic event from Tues­day after the Court of Arbi­tra­tion for Sport (CAS) con­firmed the lift­ing of a pro­vi­sion­al sus­pen­sion in con­nec­tion with a pos­i­tive drug test.

The CAS emer­gency deci­sion allows the 15-year-old to com­pete in the sin­gles event at the Bei­jing Games, which begins on Tues­day, after appeals from the Inter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee (IOC), World Anti-Dop­ing Agency (WADA) and skat­ing man­age­ment. (ISU) have been removed from their positions.

“The CAS pan­el in charge of this case has decid­ed to let Miss Valie­va con­tin­ue her par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Bei­jing 2022 Olympic Win­ter Games,” CAS direc­tor gen­er­al Matthieu Reeb said Mon­day. “This means that no pro­vi­sion­al sus­pen­sion should be imposed on the skater.”

Valieva’s “excep­tion­al cir­cum­stances” were key to the deci­sion, said the three-man CAS pan­el, which heard what it acknowl­edged were the “very lim­it­ed facts of this case.”

Two of the four rea­sons cit­ed point­ed to her sta­tus as a “pro­tect­ed per­son” as a minor under the World Anti-Dop­ing Code (WADC) and the lack of clear rules for sus­pend­ing a minor when there are spe­cif­ic pro­vi­sions for dif­fer­ent stan­dards of proof and for low­er sanc­tions. in the case of pro­tect­ed persons.

The pan­el also “con­sid­ered the fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples of fair­ness, pro­por­tion­al­i­ty, irrepara­ble harm and the rel­a­tive bal­ance of inter­ests” between Valie­va and the appel­lants, as well as the “seri­ous prob­lems of untime­ly noti­fi­ca­tion of results” that ham­pered Valieva’s “abil­i­ty to estab­lish cer­tain legal cri­te­ria”. require­ments for its per­for­mance when such late noti­fi­ca­tion was not its fault.”

An anti-dop­ing dis­ci­pli­nary com­mit­tee of Rus­si­a’s anti-dop­ing body RUSADA lift­ed a sus­pen­sion imposed on Valie­va last week after she test­ed pos­i­tive for the banned heart drug trimetazi­dine in a sam­ple tak­en on Decem­ber 25.

The test result came after Valie­va led the Russ­ian Olympic Com­mit­tee to gold in last Mon­day’s team event.

But the medal cer­e­mo­ny has been sus­pend­ed and a final deci­sion will only be made once the full case has been processed by the Inter­na­tion­al Con­trol Agency, which could be after the close of the Games on Feb­ru­ary 20.

“Tomor­row, the whole coun­try will sup­port her and all our won­der­ful skaters in the indi­vid­ual com­pe­ti­tion,” the com­mit­tee said on Telegram, call­ing it “the best news of the day.”

The teen prodi­gy became the first skater to land a quadru­ple jump at the Olympics as she led Rus­sia to a team vic­to­ry over
the Unit­ed States, Japan and Cana­da in fourth place.

The U.S. Olympic and Par­a­lympic Com­mit­tee said it was dis­ap­point­ed by the decision.

“We are dis­ap­point­ed with the mes­sage this deci­sion sends. It is the col­lec­tive respon­si­bil­i­ty of the entire Olympic com­mu­ni­ty to pro­tect the integri­ty of the sport and keep our ath­letes, coach­es and every­one involved at the high­est level.”