Winter Olympics: Kamila Valieva test puts Russia & doping in spotlight again

Russia. Doping.

Those two words sound bad enough on their own.

Russia. A case of suspected doping. Announced at an Olympics where the country is already banned for doping. A child involved.

Could it sound any worse?

The revelation that 15-year-old figure skater Kamila Valieva failed a drugs test before Beijing 2022 has put the Games under a black cloud, swinging the spotlight away from sport and once again on a dark subject that simply will not go away.

There are now questions over timelines regarding the matter, a legal case under way, uncertainty over medals won - and that is without even considering the wider damage to the credibility of anti-doping measures and the welfare of a young athlete.

So, how have we got here and what happens next?

Why are Russians at the Games - aren't they supposed to be banned?

At Tokyo 2020 and Beijing 2022, Russians have been allowed to compete under the flag of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) if they could prove they were untainted by the doping scandal that led to the country being banned from international sporting events.

An investigation into revelations that surfaced in 2014 found the country had operated a state-sponsored doping programme.

The ROC delegation to Beijing is the third biggest at the Games, with 212 athletes.

Russian athletes have won 11 medals here, but under the terms of their participation they do not hear their anthem, see their flag raised when they are on the podium and must not wear any Russian flags on their clothing.

At the Tokyo 2020 Games, Russian athletes faced backlash from fellow competitors who believed they should not be at the Games because of the country's doping record.

After the revelation on Friday of another Russian failed test, much of the reaction on social media raised exactly this point.

First a state-sponsored doping scandal - now a child failing a drugs test

The fact Valieva is a child is what makes this failed drugs test particularly shocking.

"Kamila Valieva is a young girl and child prodigy, whose highly difficult performances and grace enchanted the whole world at only 15. A minor, depending on adults and she is not to blame here," double Olympic champion Katarina Witt wrote in an emotional Facebook post. external-link

"It is a shame, and the responsible adults should be banned from the sport forever."

Valieva tested positive for trimetazidine, which is used in the prevention of angina attacks, but is on the banned list because it is classed as a cardiac metabolic modulator and has been proven to improve physical efficiency.

Former Wada deputy director Rob Koehler said there were three organisations to blame for Valieva's positive test - Wada, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas).

"By not banning Russia for four years, there was no need or desire for cultural change by Russian authorities. By allowing Russia a free pass these organisations have severely let down every single athlete in Russia because it's business as usual," he said.

"Athletes in Russia deserved a cultural change, they deserved the right to have the opportunity to compete clean. Instead, Wada, the IOC and Cas favoured the power and influence of Russian sport over clean sport."

From 'flawless' to 'failed' in headlines

Valieva had arrived in Beijing tipped for gold and had already made global headlines by becoming the first female skater to land a quadruple jump at an Olympics.

Since making her senior debut last October she has set a series of world record for scores with highly technical but also aesthetically beautiful routines and was set to star for one of the sport's most dominant countries.

She announced herself on the Olympic stage on Monday in the team event with a short programme that was just shy of her own world record score, and in the free skate the following day she even landed not just the one, but two quadruple jumps.

Commentators branded her performances "flawless" and predicted she would be making many more headlines at these Games.

Not this sort though.

What happened in the Russian doping scandal?

In 2014, revelations of a doping scandal came to light, eventually leading to a report in 2016 finding that Russia had operated a state-sponsored doping programme for four years across the "vast majority" of summer and winter Olympic sports.

That included tampering with tests at the 2014 Sochi Winter Games, where as hosts they finished top of the medal table.

At the Rio 2016 Olympics, Russians competed across a range of sports but track and field athletes were banned, while at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Games, athletes with no record of doping were allowed to compete under the name Olympic Athlete from Russia.

In 2019, Russia were given a four-year ban from all major sporting events by Wada after it declared Russia's Anti Doping Agency (Rusada) non-compliant for manipulating laboratory data handed over to investigators.

That ban was later reduced to two years by Cas and is due to run out in December.

Before Beijing 2022, Wada president Witold Banka warned Russia it should not assume the sanctions would automatically be lifted when the suspension runs out in December, saying: "At the end of the year we will need to say 'yes, Rusada can be compliant'. It is not the end of this process. It is too early to say definitely that they are compliant."

Russia denies running a state-sponsored doping programme but has acknowledged some shortcomings in its implementation of anti-doping rules.

What happens next?

The immediate issue is what happens with the Valieva case itself - although there should be a resolution with that before she is due to compete on 15 February in the women's event.

The IOC and the International Skating Union have appealed to Cas against the decision by Rusada to lift the provisional suspension it had imposed when it learned of the positive test on Tuesday.

Rusada initially suspended Valieva before she appealed against the decision.

There is also the issue of the medals for the figure skating team event, which are still to be handed out. The Russians came first, but the second-placed United States will be wondering if they are about to get a medal upgrade.

The Russian Olympic Committee said it would "take comprehensive measures in order to protect the rights and interests of the members of the ROC Team and to preserve the honestly won Olympic gold medal".

There are also question marks over why it took so long to get the result of her test - she took the test on 25 December and the result was only given on 8 February after being processed in a Wada-accredited Stockholm lab.

"It is a catastrophic failure of the system to allow the star of the Games to have her sample not reported back close to five weeks, and then it gets reported the day after they won the team event," United States Anti-Doping Agency head Travis Tygart said.

Beyond these Games though, there are broader questions that will need answering, not least what exactly needs to happens to ensure the words "Russia" and "doping" stop coming up in the same sentence.

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