Kamila Valieva: Anti-doping Case and Follow-ups | Page 258 | Golden Skate

Kamila Valieva: Anti-doping Case and Follow-ups

Apparently Anna Scherbakova unfollowed Eteri on IG (most likely today?), the same day as Eteri says Kamila is the most gifted skater +++ and then suddenly there is a source about the team members knew about the doping test before the team event.

The timing is....
The Russian article linked above by OP gives its source as The Times (UK) which itself - they say - points to the grounds and justifications part of the CAS official decision document which has not been made public yet but I can imagine some journalists could get hold of it anyway.
I tried to check this info with The Times online itself but they are behind a paywall and I do not have a subscription, nor time to go after it atm. Maybe some poster from UK has it and can check it for us?
Otherwise, we may never know what was in this document as CAS is waiting for Kamila and RUSADA to waive it for confidentiality, as I understand their yesterday's statement. So some parts of it may never be published, right?
So let's not run to hasty conclusions. Even if some people knew it before the team competition, I do not think all the other skaters on the Russian team knew it, too.
This situation is absurd enough even without it. I mean, really, they knew???
 
When you think nothing can surprise you anymore…

https://fs-gossips.com/?p=11884

This might be a very significant moment in this saga. It's a narrative shift. A culprit has been named. A tacit admission that it wasn't a water glass, it wasn't a cake, it wasn't sabotage, it wasn't a contaminated sample, or any of the other possibilities that have been floated... Eteri gave the girl something. Maybe by mistake... but she gave her something.

Tarasova spouts the party line. This isn't just some random off-the-cuff remark.
 
I've never been able to get my head around a family with a kid who thinks it's fine to drink water from the same glass her grandfather just drank out of to take his pills? Without even rinsing it? Let alone washing it? Let alone getting a clean glass out of the cupboard? :oops::sick:

The cake story is much worse imo. But I suppose the amount was not enough to be explained with rests in a glass, because the body gets rid of it rather soon, so they had to find a scenario in which the whole tablet was squashed- (but then how much of the cake/dessert did she have to eat? or does sugar change the glowing time?) and ended up in her body. A girl from Tutberidze's camp eating cake on the eve of nationals, in the Olympic season (after Eteri gave the interview with the ice cream already - how much sweets did she eat on that day accordingly?) that is already completely unbelievable. And not only was the girl completely careless and not scared to gain weight, but also the grandfather, an adult, helped her in fullfilling her desire for sweets? (And without thinking about the fact that you should be careful with medication in the household of an elite athlete who gets tested?)
And then apparently they did not have any recipes that the grandfather even took this medication - okay, you don't need recipes in Russia, but this doesn't help the story either. (And then I read all kinds of things about her grandfather which put his role in doubt in addition, but I will leave that out here, but) overall, how is anyone to believe this or even think "hm, could be true?" It sounds like an outright, blatant lie.

The Russian article linked above by OP gives its source as The Times (UK) which itself - they say - points to the grounds and justifications part of the CAS official decision document which has not been made public yet but I can imagine some journalists could get hold of it anyway.
I tried to check this info with The Times online itself but they are behind a paywall and I do not have a subscription, nor time to go after it atm. Maybe some poster from UK has it and can check it for us?
Otherwise, we may never know what was in this document as CAS is waiting for Kamila and RUSADA to waive it for confidentiality, as I understand their yesterday's statement. So some parts of it may never be published, right?
So let's not run to hasty conclusions. Even if some people knew it before the team competition, I do not think all the other skaters on the Russian team knew it, too.
This situation is absurd enough even without it. I mean, really, they knew???

From the beginning on I thought "what if they set her up themselves, to make her a victim"? But all this time I thought to myself, now come on, that's conspiracy theory territory. But at this point I don't know anymore. It's so mindboggling. Why did they not try harder to defend her? Why does Eteri say she doesn't even really know the lawyers? Wouldn't she be interested in a story that is immensely important for her own life? And I always got the feeling she's more of a controling person than that.
The Times is a reputable newspaper, but often enough media are wrong because they try to be fast rather than careful, so I'm not trusting that yet. :scratch2:
Apparently Anna Scherbakova unfollowed Eteri on IG (most likely today?), the same day as Eteri says Kamila is the most gifted skater +++ and then suddenly there is a source about the team members knew about the doping test before the team event.

The timing is....


Edit: Anna S not following Eteri on Instagram is not a conspiracy though, you can see it for yourself. If it happen today though I can´t say for sure but most likely fans would have noticed before.
Could be, but could really be someone just checked it yet. But with Tarasova's newest remarks she really did quite a turn, so... seems something's changing right now.

This might be a very significant moment in this saga. It's a narrative shift. A culprit has been named. A tacit admission that it wasn't a water glass, it wasn't a cake, it wasn't sabotage, it wasn't a contaminated sample, or any of the other possibilities that have been floated... Eteri gave the girl something. Maybe by mistake... but she gave her something.

Tarasova spouts the party line. This isn't just some random off-the-cuff remark.

Absolutely agree.
 
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In 2002, the revised medal ceremony for the pairs event was held while the Olympics was still in progress, but Jamie Sale was quoted as saying that it just didn't have the same emotional impact as an immediate ceremony.

(For anyone young enough to be fuzzy on the details, the silver medal position was left vacant and the Chinese pair were not elevated from bronze to silver. They -- Shen and Zhao -- refused to take part in the second ceremony.)
I think the Chinese team were justified in refusing to take part. From my viewpoint, the Chinese team were also victims of that judging scandal because it would seem amongst the colluders that they would not even have been given consideration to be higher than third from the outset, regardless of performance.
 
Madison Hubbell weighed in on a local news report and offers her personal insight.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=8e6Zbp2KT-4

Thanks for the link, Sam.

For folks who might not want to click (although the whole interview is very interesting) Madison says she wants a ceremony, in Paris if possible because winter Olympians always wanted to go to the summer games. :laugh:

She is not saying it's the same as a ceremony the week of the event. But it's better than no ceremony at all.

(She also has interesting things to say, which I have heard before, that even young athletes are responsible for compliance with rules, which is drilled in US athletes at a very young age.)

On a superficial level, Madison looks great. :)
 
Now they are also saying that WADA thinks that she was prescribed the medication for a heart condition caused by excessive training or something?

If so, why not get a TUE?
I'm sure RusFed is hitting themselves wondering "Why didn't WE think of that!!!". Many athletes get TUEs. They probably should have used that excuse from the start and not grandpa's glass, cake, and whatever else they tried to say.
 
This might be a very significant moment in this saga. It's a narrative shift. A culprit has been named. A tacit admission that it wasn't a water glass, it wasn't a cake, it wasn't sabotage, it wasn't a contaminated sample, or any of the other possibilities that have been floated... Eteri gave the girl something. Maybe by mistake... but she gave her something.

Tarasova spouts the party line. This isn't just some random off-the-cuff remark.
You know, I understand why Eteri Tutberidze does not like to communicate with journalists. Any statement can be interpreted by people like you in a way that makes everybody hair stand on end.

Well, if you don’t understand, then I’ll explain what Tarasova’s statement means: she says that in Eteri’s position, she would take the blame on herself only in order to spare the athlete from punishment, because the athlete is her student, almost her child , and the mother must use every opportunity to save her child from danger. Moreover, this is not even a call for some kind of self-incrimination - Tarasova simply says that the coach is fully responsible for the athlete. To make some kind of “insight” out of this, to say “the culprit has been named” is just very stupid, sorry for the directness.

On top of that, I’m not at all sure of Tarasova’s sincerity. They had conflicts many times, and Eteri, for example, believes that it was Tarasova who was to blame for the fact that Zhenya Medvedeva gained excess weight, was injured because of this, and “ran away to Orser.”

In general, you took the soap opera typical of our figure skating seriously and are trying to turn it into a Greek tragedy. Sports.ru journalists call Tarasova literally every other day, ask her different questions on different topics and immediately receive what they needed - emotional, ill-considered and often frankly ridiculous answers. And this is just one example of such answers.
 
By the way, here is Tarasova’s statement made a little earlier, immediately after the announcement of the CAS verdict:


Scoundrels and lawless people. Of course, we need to appeal this decision. We must fight scum using their own methods.

In our country, Kamila will be able to perform. She is a strong girl and can do anything.

Damn them, filthy pigs. They're taking out all the anger toward our country on a little girl.

I wouldn't even think to quote it here, but if there are people who consider Tarasova a valuable source of information on this case, then they will probably like it. As you can see, “the culprit has been named.”
 
Now they are also saying that WADA thinks that she was prescribed the medication for a heart condition caused by excessive training or something?

If so, why not get a TUE?
The "heart condition" ( athlete's heart) she had is considered benign, is very common in young athletes, and does not require treatment. She just had a low heart rate and other slightly strange test results. This happens to many young athletes who are training hard. It doesn't require treatment so she couldn't get a TUE for it. I suspect WADA mentioned this to show that she was training hard and a medication like Trimetazidine would provide additional benefit to her because it would allow her to train harder and recover quicker. Anyway, her team couldn't use this as an excuse because that would require them to acknowledge that the drug was given purposefully. So, ridiculous explanations were tried instead.
 
Sorry to be talking politics again, but it's difficult not to when people like the speaker of the foreign ministry and even the president are commenting in a highly political way.
To be fair, Russia has turned politicising sport into such an artform that it's hard not to. The protestations from the politicians are very much a case of "do as i say, not as i do".
 
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Eteri, for example, believes that it was Tarasova who was to blame for the fact that Zhenya Medvedeva gained excess weight, was injured because of this, and “ran away to Orser.”
:rock: Now we're getting to the nitty-gritty. Skating coach tempts student of rival from the paths of righteousness by plying her with chocolate.

Never a dull moment in this sport!
 
I don't believe that for a second. Kamila skated the team event normally. If they told her anything, they would have said its a "false positive and already taken care of" because she skated normal for the team event and you could see the stress once the individual event started.

If ROC knew... then why in the world not have Sasha and Anna skate? I don't believe anyone knew until after Kamila had already skated.



I would like to see an official report document. Right now the rumor mill is spinning like crazy for clicks while the story is hot.

A positive doping test at the national federation level can often be covered up and only come out months or years later, if ever. There have been a lot of countries who have been retroactively caught doing just that.

I'm sure RusFed is hitting themselves wondering "Why didn't WE think of that!!!". Many athletes get TUEs. They probably should have used that excuse from the start and not grandpa's glass, cake, and whatever else they tried to say.

For whatever reason Russian athletes seem to rarely go the TUE approach.

The "heart condition" ( athlete's heart) she had is considered benign, is very common in young athletes, and does not require treatment. She just had a low heart rate and other slightly strange test results. This happens to many young athletes who are training hard. It doesn't require treatment so she couldn't get a TUE for it. I suspect WADA mentioned this to show that she was training hard and a medication like Trimetazidine would provide additional benefit to her because it would allow her to train harder and recover quicker. Anyway, her team couldn't use this as an excuse because that would require them to acknowledge that the drug was given purposefully. So, ridiculous explanations were tried instead.

Heck, my husband can have a resting heart rate of around 40-42 beats per minute if he’s running his 5K about five times a week. A lot of folks who aren’t elite athletes just have very efficient hearts and cardiovascular systems- there’s often a genetic tendency involved.
 
For whatever reason Russian athletes seem to rarely go the TUE approach.
Genuine question here. I see people say this all the time but is this actually true? Kamila had a number of other medications in her system which were, clearly, allowed due to a TUE. Based on accounts of other figure skaters, the Russian athletes often have pages and pages of forms to fill at competitions due to the TUEs they have. So, based on facts, do Russian athletes actually request fewer TUEs? Or,is this just a talking point in propaganda to try to make it seem like doping is normal. For example, people will frequently say Simone Biles is on ADHD medication and this is like legal doping. But, in fact, Simone hasn't been prescribed such medication since she was a minor before her first Olympic medals. So, is it true that Russians don't use TUEs as much as other athletes true? Where would we find the data?
 
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The "heart condition" ( athlete's heart) she had is considered benign, is very common in young athletes, and does not require treatment. She just had a low heart rate and other slightly strange test results. This happens to many young athletes who are training hard. It doesn't require treatment so she couldn't get a TUE for it.
absolutely right. This condition is not a disease, does not require any treatment, and there can be no talk of any therapeutic exception here. In addition, a medical diagnosis is confidential information that neither WADA nor the Times has the right to publish.

To be honest, the passages that have appeared in various media with reference to the Times are increasingly questionable. In particular, it says that WADA presented some Russian literature that talked about the benefits of trimetazidine in the treatment of young athletes. So what kind of literature is this? Who is the author and when was it written and published? Why should we believe that this unknown literature is used by coaches? And most importantly, the instructions that come with all medications containing trimetazidine clearly state that the drug has never been tested on persons under 18 years of age. And these are not the latest fixes, the same thing was written in the instructions before the scandal - I checked it personally. And if the drug has not been tested on people under 18 years of age, what benefits can we talk about when treating young athletes?

The date of receipt of information about a positive doping test is a separate issue, and this also looks like misinformation
 
:rock: Now we're getting to the nitty-gritty. Skating coach tempts student of rival from the paths of righteousness by plying her with chocolate.

Never a dull moment in this sport!
Well, it wasn’t about chocolate, but about the fact that Tarasova and several other people with whom Medvedeva communicated allegedly convinced Zhenya to gain weight (I don’t remember what arguments were in favor of weight gain, but it’s not that important). And then Tarasova allegedly convinced Medvedeva of the need to change her coach. But this is offtopic, and I would not like to delve into these petty nonsense. You just need to take into account that what Tarasova, like Yana Rudkovskaya, is now saying about this incident practically does not matter.
 
both drugs that Valieva indicated in the declaration are not prohibited and taking these drugs does not require the registration of therapeutic exceptions.
Ok, interesting. I guess I just assumed that any heart medication would require a TUE. Thanks for correcting me.
 
This appears to be the Times article that Sports.Ru is mentioning. Has it been posted before; I apologize if so.

It's an opinion piece but it relays certain information as fact. There are no cites, but the information seems odd if it was made up. So it looks like he saw the CAS decision, but who knows?

 
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