“This whole story with CAS is a confrontation between logical chains” – Kommersant FM

Figure skater Kamila Valieva failed to prove the existence of her grandfather. The Court of Arbitration for Sport published a statement of reasoning in the athlete’s case. The nearly 130-page document notes that the defense was unable to convince CAS that the prohibited drug entered the Olympic participant’s body unintentionally. Last week, the court disqualified Kamila Valieva for four years due to a positive doping test taken in December 2021. The banned drug trimetazidine was found in it. The figure skater claimed that the substance entered her body with a strawberry dessert. The athlete’s grandfather allegedly placed it on the cutting board where he had previously crushed his pills. At the same time, he refused to participate in the hearings; only a video of him was provided to the court. As a result, CAS concluded that the athlete did not provide evidence of the existence of her grandfather. Kommersant FM sports commentator Vladimir Osipov, having studied the decision, thought about the questions that constantly arise in such cases.

The story with Kamila Valieva continues to be discussed quite actively. After the motivation for the scandalous case was published, it was literally broken down into molecules. The result is sad. If we put aside emotions, then we have a positive doping test of a famous athlete and incompetent legal defense of a Russian star in the future, which led to serious consequences. Of course, there are questions for those who made the verdict.

For example, how did the motivational data get to journalists long before the official publication, and who was responsible for it? Or why wasn’t the laboratory punished for delaying the release of sample data? But these are all nuances. The questions for the side representing our champion are much more serious. It was especially interesting to read in the motivational part about 60 different approved medications that were given to the athlete. Let me emphasize, then a fifteen-year-old athlete.

Of course, this does not mean that all medications were taken, but the number itself can impress anyone. But this whole story with CAS is, by and large, a confrontation between logical chains. There is usually no real evidence from either side. It’s just that some people are trying to convince the referees that the prohibited drug entered the athlete’s body by accident, while others claim that the athlete took doping intentionally. Which side has the stronger logical chain wins.

And here the main question arises, which has nothing to do with Valieva at all. Why, over ten years of proceedings in CAS, in hundreds, or even thousands of cases, the Russian side constantly makes mistakes so seriously that it loses without options. Why don’t the main lawyers in cases of Russian athletes become those who win such cases? And, returning to Valieva’s case, I would like to ask how it was possible to bring the process to such a state that the CAS arbitrators generally doubted the existence of the athlete’s grandfather, on whose testimony the entire defense was based.

After all, these are not children’s toys; lawyers were paid crazy amounts of money. If these are public funds, it would be interesting to know how the person who, while managing the country’s money, hired lawyers who miserably lost the case, is punished? It is clear that it is customary for us to send people who fail this or that case to other areas instead of punishment, but now, after such a high-profile Valieva case, isn’t it time to somehow come to our senses and figure out how to act in such situations?

After all, everyone understands that Valieva’s case is definitely not the last. After returning to international tournaments, anti-doping fighters will definitely have a lot of complaints about our athletes. Those on the other side know how to turn any situation in the right direction. In our sport, as it turns out, we have never learned how to do this, maybe it’s time to start? After all, it’s better late than never.

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