Court of Arbitration for Sport dismisses Russian appeal over Valieva medal
A Russian appeal against the decision to strip it of the figure skating team gold medal at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics was dismissed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport on Thursday.
CAS banned teenage figure skater Kamila Valieva for four years for doping in January, effective from December 2021, a decision that also stripped the Russian Olympic Committee of its gold medal in the team event at the 2022 Games, nearly two years after the competition.
The ROC, the skaters involved in the team event and the country’s figure skating federation had appealed that ruling.
“The Appellants had sought a ruling from CAS re-ranking the figure skating Team Event and awarding the gold medal to the ROC,” CAS said in a statement.
“Following the hearing that took place on 12 June 2024, the Panel deliberated and concluded that the results of Ms Valieva in the Olympic figure skating team event were correctly disqualified in the Challenged Decision and that the ROC skating Team could not be awarded the gold medal.”
Valieva had tested positive for the banned substance trimetazidine, a drug used to treat angina, at the Russian national championships in December 2021. The result was made known only after she competed in the team event in Beijing, triggering a media frenzy.
Her team had said at the time that the positive test could have been due to a mix-up with her grandfather’s heart medication. She was 15 years old at the time.
In its revision of the Beijing results, the International Skating Union demoted the Russian figure skating team from gold to bronze after Valieva’s disqualification. The United States was awarded the gold medal and Japan won silver.
The doping charge against the young athlete stirred strong emotions in Russia.
Canada which finished in fourth place, has also appealed to CAS wanting to be awarded the bronze medal that went to the Russian team.
Russia, and before it the Soviet Union, has long regarded the Olympics as a chance to showcase the country as a winner on the global stage.
But doping controversies in the past decade have soured Moscow’s relations with the International Olympic Committee and forced its athletes to compete at successive Games without their national flag or anthem.
Russian athletes are again competing as independent athletes without a flag or anthem at the Paris Olympics following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.