Russian figure skaters were deprived of team gold at the Beijing Olympics

After a four-year disqualification was imposed on Kamila Valieva, the Russian team, as expected, lost the most valuable award obtained with her help. The International Skating Union (ISU) has stripped Russian figure skaters of the 2022 Beijing Olympics gold they won in the team figure skating tournament. After the cancellation of Valieva’s results, it went to the Americans, and for domestic athletes it turned into bronze. However, both the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) and the Canadian Figure Skating Federation (Skate Canada), which believes that its team should still get ahead of the Russian one, intend to challenge this decision.

The International Skating Union responded very quickly to the publication by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) of a decision on one of the most complex and high-profile doping cases. On Monday, CAS imposed extreme punishment on the famous Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva, whose sample taken at the end of 2021 at the national championships in St. Petersburg tested positive for the banned drug trimetazidine, disqualifying her for four years and indicating the need to revoke all results shown by Valieva in competitions after the test (see “Kommersant” dated January 30). And less than 24 hours later, the ISU, which the arbitration actually ordered to deal with the prizes won by the athlete, made its decision on them.

It turned out to be quite expected. The ISU canceled all of Kamila Valieva’s international achievements after analysis. In fact there were two of them. Valieva has still continued her career, which is now in question, but since the spring of 2022, like other domestic skaters due to sanctions imposed on them in connection with a special military operation in Ukraine, exclusively in domestic competitions.

In the period after the St. Petersburg championship and before the introduction of the isolation regime, there were two top competitions with the participation of Kamila Valieva. The first is the European Championships in Estonia, which she won. Now Anna Shcherbakova, who finished second, will officially be considered the winner of the championship, and another Russian woman, Alexandra Trusova, will not be the bronze, but the silver medalist.

The second competition was the February Olympics in Beijing. Actually, along the way, it became known about Kamila Valieva’s test, thanks to her young age (she was not yet 16 years old) who performed in China in the status of a so-called protected person. After the scandal surrounding the news about the test broke out, Valieva fought for the awards of the personal tournament, but took fourth place (shcherbakova and Trusova won gold and silver).

But before the scandal, she made a colossal contribution to the convincing victory of the Russian team in the team tournament. Valieva excelled in both the short and free programs, earning 20 points.

It was this figure that the ISU, adjusting the results of the tournament, subtracted from the Russian team’s total of 74 points.

She naturally fell down, but not that far. The Americans and Japanese were ahead of the Russians with 65 and 63 points, but the Canadians remained a point behind. Thus, Valieva’s partners (and they were singles skater Mark Kondratyuk, dancers Victoria Sinitsina with Nikita Katsalapov, and double teamers Alexander Gallyamov with Anastasia Mishina) retained the rank of Olympic medalists, albeit bronze ones.

However, it was not difficult to guess that the ISU decision, despite its at least relative mildness, would still cause an extremely negative reaction in Russian sports and political circles. And the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Peskov, emphasized that it must be challenged, and “if there are at least some opportunities” to “protect the rights of our athletes, they must be mobilized to the end.” At the same time, he emphasized that all participants in the team tournament in Beijing, who upon their return from China were “honored as Olympic champions,” despite the fact that the International Olympic Committee immediately postponed the award ceremony indefinitely, “will always remain Olympic champions for us.” , “no matter what decisions are made in this regard, even unfair ones.”

The step taken by the ISU led to some changes in the medal standings at the Beijing Olympics. Its main beneficiary was the US team.

Having received her ninth gold, she climbed to the third line of the classification, knocking off the Chinese. The story with Kamila Valieva had little impact on the position of the Russian national team. And having parted with her sixth gold, she retained ninth place in the medal standings, since in terms of the total number of awards (32 versus 14) she was significantly ahead of the French, who were formally equal to her in victories.

However, the ISU verdict on the outcome of the team tournament will still be reviewed by CAS. Moreover, two interested parties decided to challenge it at once.

The Russian Olympic Committee, saying that its lawyers “have already begun preparing the necessary documents for filing an appeal,” said it “assumes that, in accordance with the current ISU rules, the consequences of a decision on sanctions in relation to an individual athlete, in this case Kamila Valieva, cannot be a basis for revising the results of the team tournament.” The ROC insists that its “legal position” is based “on existing precedents in CAS practice.”

The Canadian Figure Skating Federation also disagreed with the ISU’s interpretation. She informed that she would “consider options to appeal the decision.” According to Skate Canada, the ISU was required to apply a clause in the rules that requires an athlete “initially placed lower than a disqualified competitor to be promoted higher.” Thus, single skater Madeleine Skizas (third place in both the short and free programs) should be awarded two additional points, and the Canadian team will then overtake the Russian team.

Alexey Dospehov