Kamila Valieva: Anti-doping Case and Follow-ups

[Fanof]

So we won't know what the verdict is until 24 hours before the women's SP is set to begin. And if there is an appeal how long that will take.

The cynic in me says nothing will come of this - a minor suspension after the games, Kamila competes for now, the team gold remains, six months from now the ban is lifted on Russian athletes not being able to technically compete as Russian athletes and things will go on as before and before that. Sambo or whatever it's called will also go on as before.

The realist in my says nothing will come of this - a minor suspension after the games, Kamila competes for now, the team gold remains, six months from now the ban is lifted on Russian athletes not being able to technically compete as Russian athletes and things will go on as before and before that. Sambo or whatever it's called will also go on as before.

I am amazed (impressed?) that this thread is almost 100 pages to date. And by the thoughtful and informed posts. But in the end will it all mean anything?

And the Skate Gods are probably playing poker or catching up on their sleep.

I don't know, as she was not sent back home immediately, it's becoming as big a scandal as in Salt Lake City, and things had changed afterwards. I think it will make the new age limit easier to pass, and most certainly there will be no quads in the SP for ever. Pretty sure some will try to limit or forbid quads in the FP. I don't think it will just be back to normalcy.

Now back to KV. That's where it would be interesting to know how Russian television is currently reporting about one of their most famous athletes in one of their most popular sports. Posters and messages to support KV are of little interest, everyone has already understood she is not the mastermind of a sprawling doping network and I suppose no sensible person wishes her ill. But one week after the initial shock, is it rather "no one likes us" or rather "we may have a problem in our clubs"?

Now, would any normal parents send their daughter to a club where it is known she will be given prohibited products? It will be also interesting to see if skaters leave the club or not (in which case, I agree with you, it's just hopeless).

 

[norwegianfairytale]

I mean then it enters into the subjective realms of "how you feel"...the idea of it not being ok. And let's remember anytime between 6 weeks and less for a ban would clear her for the Olympics. Sun Yang it was only 3 months.

Actually not. As far as I understand this is how WADA operates in cases like this. I read in this thread that the minimum is 2 months suspension anyways. So regardless her OGM will be taken away if they decide to suspend her after the investigation is done.

 

[NaVi]

Agreed, I am wondering about that too. It would be weird if everyone's sample came back earlier except for Valieva's.

They would probably retest and analyze her results so there could be a little bit of a gap.

One thing that's important is that as attention moves to Valieva's coaches that she shouldn't have legal representation that has a conflict of interest in protecting her coaches.

 

[norwegianfairytale]

It seems Kamila is present at the hearing and will explain herself:

MOSCOW, February 13. /TASS/. Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva will speakby video to the panel of arbitrators of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Beijing during hearings of the case on the cancellation of her temporary suspension, Associated Press reported on Sunday, citing CAS Director General Matthieu Reeb.

Reeb confirmed that a ruling on Valieva’s case is to be made public on February 14. Valieva’s attorneys will represent her interests from Switzerland online.


https://tass.com/sport/1402563

 

[beachmouse]

One might also say that it is a bit naïve at this point to think the possibility that someone tampered with the sample is more likely than that there was a legitimate positive sample.

That said, I agree that Kamila's best line of defence probably would be to argue that the results of the test took too long to be reported and have the suspension thrown out on purely formal grounds.

The current look back period on doping tests is ten years in order to allow for new technology to analyze old samples. There were results being readjusted in 2021 from the 2012 London Olympics.

Then read again the description of the medicine: https://www.vidal.ru/drugs/angiozil_retard__13214#hepato
No mention of dosage there. That means that the smallest amount is too much.

And you cannot use the same physical pill twice because it absorbs in the human body...

TMZ is probably reasonably safe in under-18s that have gotten their adult bodies. The lack of approval likely comes because of medical ethics reasons- there must be study that shows a drug both significantly helps a condition and does not cause 'too much' harm with its side effects. Adult studies are pretty easy to do- when I was at university, you could get paid to sign up for therapeutic drug studies to see if they had any negative effects if you needed extra beer money. But when you're talking under-18s, you need to get adult approval and you're effectively experimenting on children who may not have the ability to give informed consent and if current treatments for angina in children (which is far rarer than in the 50+ age group) seem to work well and cause minimal side effects then there is probably not really a good reason to pursue an under-18 approval.

 

[florin]

I'm not saying the girls' abilities or her school's success are all thanks to doping, not at all. It's a mix of several things, including a Soviet mindset regarding children and their handling, state funding and promotion of the sport, a finely tuned machinery that they have worked out over the years, long and hard hours, submissive parents and incredibly talented and success driven girls. And between all of these extreme methods, giving them some low-dose, semi-legal, grey-zone medication to squeeze out the last 0.5%, does not seem surprising.

So you think that 0.5% separates your Karen Chen from Valieva?

You're trying to sit on two chairs. I recommend sticking to the black and white position - "all Russian liars! Here is the true explanation of their success - a magic pill! Phew, what a relief for our pride."

 

[NaVi]

I wonder why drug testers don't use hair samples.

I'm just learning about this, but it appears that hair follicles hold evidence of any drug use for 90 days. That would take care of cases where drugs are carefully administered in doses that will leave the body within certain times to avoid detection via urine tests. Four tests a year, properly spaced, would take care of this.

Here's an interview with Pascal Kintz(who wrote an editorial questioning if trimetazidine should be banned) on hair analysis.

Doping: When an athlete is saved by a “hair's breadth”

Athletes suspected of doping, risk their careers due to unintentional contamination. Hair analysis is a complex but reliable technique separating real from fake, explains Prof. Pascal Kintz in an interview.

www.esanum.com

Prof. Kintz: Hair analysis is valuable when urine analysis shows almost nothing - either because the amount of substance in the body is small or because it has been consumed for a long time - but especially when the concentration measured is uninterpretable. In these borderline cases, hair analysis can help. Each centimetre of hair represents what has circulated in the body during the corresponding month: if the substance is clearly found in it, this indicates chronic and long-standing consumption, and therefore reinforces the hypothesis of doping. If there is nothing in the hair, then accidental contamination is supported.

How can an athlete unintentionally have a doping substance in the body? Two scenarios are possible. Firstly, they could have ingested the product without their knowledge. Doping substances have already been found in meat or toothpaste. The same applies to certain diuretics which are prohibited by the anti-doping authorities because they "mask" the use of doping products. Traces of these diuretics can be found in medicines that are authorised. Second scenario: the athlete has unintentionally been impregnated with a prohibited product, either through contact with a person who regularly consumed it - this is known as "cross-contamination" - or because he or she has been exposed to "environmental" contamination.

If chronic trimetazidine usage can be detected in hair, Valieva should consider a hair analysis be done if it was accidental ingestion. Of course, it could be quite embarrassing if anything else was found via hair analysis.

 

[flipsydoodle]

This confuses me. I wonder why they didn't have the medal ceremony on the day the Team Event concluded. The positive result was only found on the 8th and the event concluded on the 7th with men's SP starting on the 8th. It is really fishy.

I’m thinking they actually tested the B sample, with the results after the event concluded and before the medals. And RUS and Eteri had known about the A sample for a while.
This is speculation on my part.

 

[florin]

Off: Even more than 90 years! Researchers analyse Napoleon's hair whether he was poisoned or not ) https://www.livescience.com/2292-napoleon-death-arsenic-poisoning-ruled.html
On

This is not such an offtop. No one explained to me exactly how TT took the risk of systematic doping (and I claimed and will continue to claime the obvious thing that taking TMZ gives advantage only with systematic use - this follows from the description of its alleged advantage) if any random check immediately detects the presence of this drug given the sensitivity of modern methods

 

[starlight97]

It seems Kamila is present at the hearing and will explain herself:

Goodness... I mean, I get why that would be invited or even necessary from the legal perspective, but from a human standpoint, this is just so insanely hard on her.

Having to pronounce yourself to a room full of powerful strangers, through translators, under immense pressure to say the right things as to not incriminate your coaches or yourself and advocate your position since they will surely give her the, possible, illusion that she could sway their decision.. and all of that on the eve of your Olympic performance.

Honestly, if for some reason she skates, literally forget about the doping advantage, this psychological terror has nullified anything she could have possibly gained before. If anything she will be at a disadvantage.

 

[norwegianfairytale]

I’m thinking they actually tested the B sample, with the results after the event concluded and before the medals. And RUS and Eteri had known about the A sample for a while.
This is speculation on my part.

I hope they will give us some more information about the B sample after we know what CAS decided tomorrow.

 

[millie]

TMZ is only given to athletes while they are in training. Training their bodies to do the quads, practice and skate longer and harder. Once in competition, the banned drug is out of their system..During the Olympics there is Zero doping in one’s system, even a trace is still classified as doping. I am wondering, the minor will be 16 in April, would it have made any difference in this doping situation, if she was 16. Doping is Doping..

 

[flipsydoodle]

Here's an interview with Pascal Kintz(who wrote an editorial questioning if trimetazidine should be banned) on hair analysis.

Doping: When an athlete is saved by a “hair's breadth”

Athletes suspected of doping, risk their careers due to unintentional contamination. Hair analysis is a complex but reliable technique separating real from fake, explains Prof. Pascal Kintz in an interview.

www.esanum.com

If chronic trimetazidine usage can be detected in hair, Valieva should consider a hair analysis be done if it was accidental ingestion.

What are this man’s credentials? He doesn’t seem to take into account that everyone’s hair grows at different speeds, sometimes it speeds up and slows down due to stress, etc. And not all substances show up in the hair (see Shelby Houlihan’s case last summer Olympics).
IMO the only evidence that can be relied upon for pharmacology has to be peer reviewed by an internationally recognized body or publication.

 

[florin]

Having to pronounce yourself to a room full of powerful strangers

The interrogation will be conducted remotely, via video communication

 

[norwegianfairytale]

Goodness... I mean, I get why that would be invited or even necessary from the legal perspective, but from a human standpoint, this is just so insanely hard on her.

Having to pronounce yourself to a room full of powerful strangers, through translators, under immense pressure to say the right things as to not incriminate your coaches or yourself and advocate your position since they will surely give her the, possible, illusion that she could sway their decision.. and all of that on the eve of your Olympic performance.

Honestly, if for some reason she skates, literally forget about the doping advantage, this psychological terror has nullified anything she could have possibly gained before. If anything she will be at a disadvantage.

Yes, it must be difficult. At least her attorney is present online from Switzerland, so i´m sure he will look after that everything is done correctly in the hearing. I´m not sure how her English is, but I hope she also has a translator present to make sure she doesn´t say anything wrong by mistake.

 

[florin]

TMZ is only given to athletes while they are in training. Training their bodies to do the quads, practice and skate longer and harder. Once in competition, the banned drug is out of their system..During the Olympics there is Zero doping in one’s system, even a trace is still classified as doping. I am wondering, the minor will be 16 in April, would it have made any difference in this doping situation, if she was 16. Doping is Doping..

It is not excreted from the body instantly. It takes a few days - the half-life is 7-12 hours. Once again, half-life. This means that the concentration will decrease four times (only four times!) in 14-24 hours, eight times in 21-36 hours. How to avoid the risk of accidental checks?

 

[macy]

TMZ is only given to athletes while they are in training. Training their bodies to do the quads, practice and skate longer and harder. Once in competition, the banned drug is out of their system..During the Olympics there is Zero doping in one’s system, even a trace is still classified as doping. I am wondering, the minor will be 16 in April, would it have made any difference in this doping situation, if she was 16. Doping is Doping..

It makes a lot of sense why so many of these skaters in this camp have been injured.

 

[silveruskate]

Actually not. As far as I understand this is how WADA operates in cases like this. I read in this thread that the minimum is 2 months suspension anyways. So regardless her OGM will be taken away if they decide to suspend her after the investigation is done.

It's possible but WADA isn't the last arbiter, right? WADA always goes for the maximum. And CAS for some reason is more lenient. Like Sharapova from 2 years to 15 months and they forced the wording to say she can't be called a cheater. Honestly almost bordering on corruption their behaviour if they write a document like that.

Oh and the legal minimum is a caution and any length of ban upto 2 years.

 

[millie]

Goodness... I mean, I get why that would be invited or even necessary from the legal perspective, but from a human standpoint, this is just so insanely hard on her.

Having to pronounce yourself to a room full of powerful strangers, through translators, under immense pressure to say the right things as to not incriminate your coaches or yourself and advocate your position since they will surely give her the, possible, illusion that she could sway their decision.. and all of that on the eve of your Olympic performance.

Honestly, if for some reason she skates, literally forget about the doping advantage, this psychological terror has nullified anything she could have possibly gained before. If anything she will be at a

It makes a lot of sense why so many of these skaters in this camp have been injured.

Most of Eteri’s students retire injured before the age of 18.

 

[florin]

It makes a lot of sense why so many of these skaters in this camp have been injured.

The kingdom of crooked mirrors! Everything is perverted and turned upside down.

It is injuries that are one of the most important limiting factors. That is why the logic of the supposed advantage of TMZ does not work at all in figure skating (this logic is taken from such sports as athletics, swimming, etc.) And we really have to discuss the legitimacy and correctness of the formalistic-bureaucratic vision of WADA. Instead, you perverted it and turned upside down.

It's useless. You just want blood and have decided everything for yourself. This is understandable - such a delightful opportunity to destroy this hated Russian superiority. I'm sure everything will turn out exactly the way you want - they will ruin Kamila's life, and undermine the reputation of Russian ladies. Enjoy.