BERLIN, 21 Feb. (dpa/EP) –
The World Anti-Doping Agency (AMA) has asked the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) a four-year suspension for Russian skater Kamila Valieva, which would lead to the withdrawal of her gold medal at the Beijing Winter Olympics last year.
The AMA announced this Tuesday that it does not agree with the conclusions of a Russian disciplinary committee, which declared that Valieva had “no fault or negligence” in her positive anti-doping control a few weeks before the Games, and indicates that she should be disqualified. retroactively since then.
Valieva, 15 years old, shone on the ice in Beijing to help the Russian team, which was competing as a neutral due to the sanctions imposed by the state doping scheme, to get the gold medal in the team event.
A few days later it emerged that he had tested positive for the banned substance trimetazidine in late December 2021, forcing the team medal ceremony to be postponed until the case was resolved. CAS upheld Russia’s decision to allow her to compete in the women’s event, in which she led after the short program, but she fell several times in the free skate and finished fourth.
WADA went to CAS again in the fall, alleging that Russia was delaying the case, and requested a four-year ban. The Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) ruled last month that she was not guilty or negligent and only disqualified her from national championships in which she had tested positive.
WADA declared this Tuesday that it has “carefully reviewed the entire reasoned decision” and considers that the conclusion of the RUSADA disciplinary tribunal that the athlete did not commit a fault or negligence “is erroneous under the terms of the World Anti-Doping Code”, therefore that he has exercised his right “to file an appeal before the Court of Arbitration for Sport”.
Thus, it requests a four-year period of ineligibility and the annulment of all the results of the skater from the date of the sampling, December 25, 2021. “As it has tried to do throughout this process WADA will continue to press for this matter to proceed without further undue delay,” he said.
Valieva has returned to national competition, but Russian skaters are banned from international events as part of sanctions on Russian and Belarusian athletes following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.