The Kremlin announced on Tuesday that it does not accept the decision of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to suspend Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva for four years for doping. “We do not agree with these decisions, neither with the court’s decision nor with the decision of the (ice skating) federation. We do not accept them,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a call with reporters.
“Russia will defend the rights of its athletes to the end. If there is any opportunity to challenge and continue to defend the rights of our athletes, we must mobilize them to the end,” he promised.
The CAS sanction left Russia without Olympic gold in the team event during the Beijing Winter Games in 2022, in which Valieva was participating. Today, the International Skating Federation formally announced that after subtracting the points of the sanctioned skater, Russia fell to third place. Thus, the gold goes to the United States, the silver to Japan and the bronze to the Japanese team. Despite everything, Pesko affirms that “Russia would always consider them Olympic champions.”
For this reason, the Russian Olympic Committee (COR) has announced its intention to appeal the CAS decision to withdraw the gold medal from the team event. “The COR will certainly appeal to the CAS against the decision of the International Skating Federation (ISU) on the redistribution of the final places in the team figure skating tournament,” the COR reported on its website. Web. The COR considers that, according to ISU rules, sanctions against a specific athlete cannot lead to the review of the results of the team classification.
The CAS panel determined that there was no possibility that Valieva, who was 15 years old at the time of the violation, would be treated more leniently than an adult who had committed an anti-doping rule violation.
Valieva tested positive for the banned substance trimetazidine, a banned heart medication, during the Russian national championships in December 2021. The test result was not known until two months later, 24 hours after Valieva won gold in the team event during the Beijing Winter Games. Her team argued that the positive result could have been due to a mix-up with her grandfather’s heart medication.
Yesterday, after learning of the decision, the Kremlin was quick to react to the sanction, calling the CAS decision “political.” “Of course, we do not agree with this decision. From my point of view, it is a political decision,” said Peskov, who today appeared before the press again to reiterate Russia’s position in disqualifying one of the best skaters of history.
“On our return from China from the Olympic Games we honored these athletes as Olympic champions. We are convinced that for us they will always remain Olympic champions, no matter what decisions are made in this regard, even unfair ones,” Peskov said.
Russia, and before it the Soviet Union, have long viewed the Olympics as an opportunity to showcase the country as a winner on the world stage. But doping controversies over the past decade have soured Moscow’s relations with the International Olympic Committee and forced its athletes to compete in successive Games without their national flag or anthem.
