The determine skating competitors on the 2026 Winter Olympics has begun however one of many stars of the 2022 Video games is not going to be collaborating
Kamila Valieva competing in Russia’s skate leaping championships (Picture: Getty)
Friday morning introduced the start of the determine skating competitors on the 2026 Winter Olympics. There was no room for Kamila Valieva, although, after the Russian misplaced her enchantment in opposition to a doping ban. Valieva made her Olympic debut in Beijing in 2022, when she was simply 15 years outdated regardless of having examined optimistic for a banned substance in an occasion forward of the Video games. She was allowed to compete and helped Russia win workforce gold in China however was finally stripped of her medals.
The state of affairs attracted fury on the time from Adam Rippon, a former determine skater who served because the coach of American skater Mariah Bell in 2022. Nonetheless, he didn’t put the blame on Valieva himself. “This complete state of affairs is heartbreaking,” Rippon wrote on social media. “This younger woman is simply 15. She’s a minor. The adults round her have utterly failed her. They’ve put her on this terrible state of affairs and ought to be punished.”
The banned substance in query, trimetazidine, confirmed up after Valieva underwent a medicine take a look at in December 2021 – simply weeks earlier than the Beijing video games. Reiterating that he blamed the adults concerned reasonably than {the teenager} herself, Rippon added: “A optimistic take a look at is a optimistic take a look at.
“Testing unfavourable now doesn’t negate the very fact that there have been efficiency enhancing medication concerned within the course of. It’s a f***ing disgrace. It didn’t want to come back to this. SHE IS A CHILD.
“The Swiss Federal Courtroom declared {that a} important a part of Valieva’s arguments rested on proof obtained after the contested resolution had been issued,” Russian information company TASS mentioned on the time. “The protection didn’t present any supporting paperwork from the so-called Saugy report (an Related Press report citing former director of the Lausanne Anti-Doping Laboratory, Martial Saugy), which was introduced as irrefutable proof.”
Whereas Valieva gained’t be competing in 2026, plenty of different Russian and Belarusian determine skaters have been allowed to participate as ‘particular person impartial athletes’ amid the nations’ IOC ban. These are Russian pair Adeliia Petrosian and Petr Gumennik and Belarus’ Viktoriia Safonova.
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