Court of Arbitration for Sport Clears the Way for Kamila Valieva to compete

BEIJING — Kamila Valieva is in.

The Ad Hoc Division of the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled Mondaythat the 15-year-old Russian figure skater can continue participating in the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games.

She will compete in the women’s short program Tuesday night where she is the favorite to win the gold medal.

The ruling went against the International Olympic Committee (represented by the International Testing Agency), the International Skating Union and the World Anti-Doping Agency, which had appealed the decision by the Russian Anti-Doping Agency Disciplinary Anti-Doping Committee to lift Valieva’s provisional suspension.

CAS said that one over-arching issue is Valieva’s age. At 15 she is a “protected person” under the World Anti-Doping Code.

The statement read in part:

“The Panel considered fundamental principles of fairness, proportionality, irreparable harm, and the relative balance of interests as between the Applicants and the Athlete, who did not test positive during the Olympic Games in Beijing and is still subjected to a disciplinary procedure on the merits following the positive anti-doping test undertaken in December 2021; in particular, the Panel considered that preventing the Athlete from competing at the Olympic Games would cause her irreparable harm.”

The CAS Panel also emphasized that there were “serious issues of untimely notification of the results of the Athlete’s anti-doping test… which “impinged upon the Athlete’s ability to establish certain legal requirements for her benefit, which such late notification was not her fault, in the middle of the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022.”

Valieva had a scheduled practice half an hour after the decision came down.

CAS held a hearing Sunday night by video conference to address the urgency of the situation with the competition on the horizon. According to a CAS statement, the hearing began at 8:34 p.m. and ended at 2:10 a.m. Valieva attended the hearing along with the alphabet soup of organizations and agencies, including the Russian Olympic Committee.

The three arbitrators were Fabio Iudica of Italy (president), Jeffrey Benz of the United States and Vesna Bergant Rakočeviċ of Slovenia.

The banned substance trimetazidine was detected in a sample Valieva provided on Dec. 25, although the notification of her positive test did not arrive until Feb. 7. The drug supposedly aids in blood flow, which can help an athlete train.

The ruling did not solve the issue for the team figure skating event won by Russia with Valieva contributing the maximum 10-point score in both the short program and the free skate on Feb. 6 and Feb. 7. She became the first female athlete to successfully complete a quadruple jump, which she did twice.

CAS said that it was “not requested to rule on the merits of this case, nor to examine the legal consequences relating to the results of the team event in figure skating as such issues will be examined in other proceedings.”

Surely, her entourage will also come under scrutiny, including coach controversial Eteri Tutberidze.

Russian officials blamed the COVID-19 pandemic for the delay between Valieva’s test and the accredited lab in Stockholm processing and reporting the results.

USOPC reacted minutes after learning of the CAS decision.

“We are disappointed by the message this decision sends”, Sarah Hirshland, USOPC CEO, said in a statement.

“Athletes have the right to know they are competing on a level playing field. Unfortunately, today that right is being denied. This appears to be another chapter in the systemic and pervasive disregard for clean sport by Russia”.

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