Kamila Valieva: Anti-doping Case and Follow-ups

[Janice4th]

There is absolutely room for nuance, and we'll no more once the full decision, and supporting documentation is released, but based on what has been reported so far Valieva's representatives presented no evidence to indicate that the positive test was as a result of contamination or unintentional ingestion.

It would solve a lot of these arguments if we had the actual test results. But we can infer from the fact that the CAS didn’t accept her explanation, the amount constitutes more than what would show up for drinking from grandpa’s glass.
My guess is Kamila forgot she wasn’t supposed to take one of her pills before the competition.
Whether or not she knew her team was giving her a banned drug is debatable- I’d say she didn’t, or she would have taken more care on which pills to take before a competition.

 

[Arwen17]

Rules that would have prevented the entire mess:

1. If the Olympics doesn't want a doping scandal to appear, then require all athlete tests to be finished and processed before they turn up at the Olympics. That way the only people who will be around to start a scandal are those stupid enough use drugs during the Olympics itself.

2. Don't raise stupid age limits to avoid your poorly written rules. Write the rules to apply to all athletes regardless of age. If you test positive at the Olympics, you don't get to compete, no matter what your age is.

3. Have actual clear rules for every team event if someone does test positive. Don't wait around until it actually happens and throw your hands into the air because you don't know what to do about it and have endless appeals about the medals and points.

Also,
I think the lab not returning the result on time is HUGE deal. I don't care what its marked as or where the testing is happening. Athletes should get their tests back in a timely manner because there is always a chance of something going wrong. You can think you're a totally clean athlete and have nothing to worry about so who cares if the test is late?, but then BAM something from your lipstick metabolized in a strange way or one of your supplement pills was contaminated and now its "your fault" for participating in a team event where your country loses the gold medal "because of you". When literally it was because the lab didn't return the results on time so that you could be disqualified early and they could send someone else. It SUCKS to be the person who is temp-suspended for accidental contamination, but at least it confines the damage to only you and not your entire team and entire country.
Just finding a positive test doesn't automatically mean the person is guilty and deserves to have it effect their entire team and country. That's why tests should be required to be finished before they ever go to Olympics. It helps IOC avoid scandals and helps protect all the athletes.

I swear IOC acts like it WANTS scandal just so it can get lots of press to get people to watch the Olympics. aka no press is "bad press" because it all generates views and clicks for their Olympics.
Remember that the Harding-Kerrigan scandal remains the most-watched sports event in history. So to me it's clear IOC LOVES scandal because it grabs eyes like nothing else can. So they do as little as possible to prevent it and have no problem with late tests potentially becoming a problem.

 

[beachmouse]

USADA cares about clean athletes who are good enough to have the potential to medal at the national level and represent the USA in international competition, or who are competing for prize money above a certain threshold. The Jamaican wouldn’t have ranked in the top 100 Americans in her best events and since she’s not American and not an elite athlete by their standards, she wasn’t part of the USADA anti-doping out of competition testing pool. Her only USADA contact would have been a random test at Winter Junior Nationals.

Why should USADA be responsible for testing an athlete who, while definitely above average, isn’t an elite athlete by their metrics and is never going to represent Team USA in international competition?

Really, if USADA was responsible for testing every foreign national training in the USA who represented their home country in international competition under ‘universailty’ competition invitations, they’d go broke.

If you want to chip in and have drug testing at the state of Connectuit short course yards championship, (one of the meets she competed in) feel free to do so. USA Swimming had 330K registered members last year and there are probably another 5K or so foreign nationals drifting around pools

And USASwimming doesn’t cover a fairly large number of clubs and athletes. You don’t have to be a member of USA Swimming to compete for an NCAA or NAIA team, a high school team or a summer league team. (Though a lot of athletes do bot USS and non-USA meets in the same year.) I don’t think you have to be a member to compete at YMCA national either.

And USA Swimming can’t ask for a drug test from someone who is not a member of USA swimming and is only competing at NCAAs or the Texas high school state championships or such.

I competed at the NCAA D3 level in swimming. The only time we had in-competition drug testing was if you made it to Nationals. Because it was seen as very low probability that anyone competing at that level would be using PEDs that actually improved performance. (I did know a fair number of people who used cannabis out of season though; we were college students after all.)

I did have a teammate that went through the TUE process with USA Swimming when she was in high school because she had Crohn’s disease. Said condition kept her from making a D1 squad even with her TUE meds managing her condition.

 

[Diana Delafield]

Have I missed anywhere any mention of Marina Klimova's positive drug test at Europeans '91, where she appeared at first to have been taking steroids? It turned out to be the fault of her birth control pills, but it was quite a scandal at the time. There's an article in the New York Times digital archive for Feb 14, 1991, but I can't get it to transfer here for sharing.

 

[Janice4th]

It was the lab's fault that Valieva skated in the team event. Had the result been returned 30 hours earlier then of course Russia could have put any top 15 female skater from Russian championships in her place and secured gold. The medal debacle is 100% the fault of lab, not RUSADA or ROC or Valieva as I have said all along. However, now we are learning that Russian skaters were forced to corner WADA officials at the European championships in order to beg for their test results to be returned. From what I've read, it's quite normal for the results to be updated in ADAMS 5-10 days after the lab receives the sample, but they are obligated to have the test completed and ADAMS updated with 21 days.

This is not the skater's responsibility, it is the responsibility of WADA's lab 100%. The children can't be held responsible for EVERYTHING and EVERYONE.

No, it isn’t the labs fault that RusFed didn’t appropriately mark the samples correctly.

 

[moonvine]

How it feels when you get your reallocated Olympic gold medal in an airport food court-

How it feels to be given an Olympic gold medal ... nine years later at a Burger King

Adam Nelson went to Athens in 2004 as favourite to win gold for USA in the shot put. He lost by the slimmest of margins, took silver and continued with his life – until he was asked to meet an Olympics official at an airport food court

www.theguardian.com

That is that person's feelings and experience, which aren't invalidated by the fact that our team wants their gold medals.

 

[Jumping_Bean]

Mackenzie Headley

Windsor, CT

www.swimcloud.com

No, she competed all throughout that time.

She didn't compete from July 2022 to March 2023 and was with 100% certainty provisionally suspended in October of 2022. The articles were not very clear on when her provisional suspension was lifted, one said February, the other July If she competed in March, the first article was probably correct, which means she still was suspended for 4 months.

 

[NanaPat]

That is that person's feelings and experience, which aren't invalidated by the fact that our team wants their gold medals.

I think the point of the article is that your team should not only get their medals, but should get them in an appropriate manner.

 

[Crowdproud]

No, it isn’t the labs fault that RusFed didn’t appropriately mark the samples correctly.

Non-priority samples are supposed to be returned in 21 days, i.e. by end of Jan 2022 in Valieva's case. The lab *did* screw up.

 

[LolaSkatesInJapan]

It was the lab's fault that Valieva skated in the team event. Had the result been returned 30 hours earlier then of course Russia could have put any top 15 female skater from Russian championships in her place and secured gold. The medal debacle is 100% the fault of lab, not RUSADA or ROC or Valieva as I have said all along. However, now we are learning that Russian skaters were forced to corner WADA officials at the European championships in order to beg for their test results to be returned. From what I've read, it's quite normal for the results to be updated in ADAMS 5-10 days after the lab receives the sample, but they are obligated to have the test completed and ADAMS updated with 21 days.

This is not the skater's responsibility, it is the responsibility of WADA's lab 100%. The children can't be held responsible for EVERYTHING and EVERYONE.

EXACTLY

 

[Arwen17]

No, it isn’t the labs fault that RusFed didn’t appropriately mark the samples correctly.

It is the lab's fault. even for a "non-priority" sample, the lab was very late.

Also,
I think the lab not returning the result on time is HUGE deal. I don't care what its marked as or where the testing is happening. Athletes should get their tests back in a timely manner because there is always a chance of something going wrong. You can think you're a totally clean athlete and have nothing to worry about so who cares if the test is late?, but then BAM something from your lipstick metabolized in a strange way or one of your supplement pills was contaminated and now its "your fault" for participating in a team event where your country loses the gold medal "because of you". When literally it was because the lab didn't return the results on time so that you could be disqualified early and they could send someone else. It SUCKS to be the person who is temp-suspended for accidental contamination, but at least it confines the damage to only you and not your entire team and entire country.
Just finding a positive test doesn't automatically mean the person is guilty and deserves to have it effect their entire team and country. That's why tests should be required to be finished before they ever go to Olympics. It helps IOC avoid scandals and helps protect all the athletes.

I swear IOC acts like it WANTS scandal just so it can get lots of press to get people to watch the Olympics. aka no press is "bad press" because it all generates views and clicks for their Olympics.
Remember that the Harding-Kerrigan scandal remains the most-watched sports event in history. So to me it's clear IOC LOVES scandal because it grabs eyes like nothing else can. So they do as little as possible to prevent it and have no problem with late tests potentially becoming a problem.

 

[Ziotic]

Non-priority samples are supposed to be returned in 21 days, i.e. by end of Jan 2022 in Valieva's case. The lab *did* screw up.

Can you site your source for 21days? I thought it was 60 for non priority and they submitted on day 59.

 

[beachmouse]

Have I missed anywhere any mention of Marina Klimova's positive drug test at Europeans '91, where she appeared at first to have been taking steroids? It turned out to be the fault of her birth control pills, but it was quite a scandal at the time. There's an article in the New York Times digital archive for Feb 14, 1991, but I can't get it to transfer here for sharing.

I want to say that more modern birth control pills with lower doses of assorted drugs and hormones have taken over most of the world in the 21st century because they are just as effective in preventing pregnancy with fewer side effects like easy weight gain. IIRC, runner Mary Decker-Tabb-Slaney also used the birth control pill defense when she had a doping positive later in her career but the IAAF didn’t buy that explanation and the suspension effectively ended her career.

 

[el henry]

It is NOT the lab's fault. Repeat after me, louder for the people in the back, it is NOT the lab's fault.

It is RUSADA's fault for cheating so much in the past that they needed to use an outside lab. It is RUSADA's fault for not following up. It is RUSADA's fault for not marking the sample as urgent.

RusFed excuses remind me of a toddler: the dog did it, it was my brother, waaah, mommy it wasn't me, anything that would stop RusFed from looking in the mirror and taking responsibility as they deserve for this entire situation

And laughing responses mean that you are happy and agree with me, so I'll take it

 

[4everchan]

And laughing responses mean that you are happy and agree with me, so I'll take it

It also gives you positive feedback on this forum even the angry faces do HAHA

Seriously : sharing this collection of reactions from Russia from a CBC journalist.
He includes many of the things already discussed but it's all in one pile so I thought I would share it
(quotes by Eteri T. Tatiana T, RUSADA etc.. ) People in Russia are apparently now looking to find who are the adults responsible for this abuse of a child.

In French... Easy to get a good translation from google translate. If you have questions about a sentence or a paragraph, do not hesitate to ask me.

Analyse | L’entourage de Kamila Valieva montré du doigt en Russie

La suspension de la jeune patineuse artistique russe Kamila Valieva pour quatre ans soulève beaucoup de questions et de colère. Dans la société russe, on commence à s’interroger sur les véritables responsables de toute cette affaire.

ici.radio-canada.ca

 

[Moon322]

Rules that would have prevented the entire mess:

1. If the Olympics doesn't want a doping scandal to appear, then require all athlete tests to be finished and processed before they turn up at the Olympics. That way the only people who will be around to start a scandal are those stupid enough use drugs during the Olympics itself.

2. Don't raise stupid age limits to avoid your poorly written rules. Write the rules to apply to all athletes regardless of age. If you test positive at the Olympics, you don't get to compete, no matter what your age is.

3. Have actual clear rules for every team event if someone does test positive. Don't wait around until it actually happens and throw your hands into the air because you don't know what to do about it and have endless appeals about the medals and points.

Also,
I think the lab not returning the result on time is HUGE deal. I don't care what its marked as or where the testing is happening. Athletes should get their tests back in a timely manner because there is always a chance of something going wrong. You can think you're a totally clean athlete and have nothing to worry about so who cares if the test is late?, but then BAM something from your lipstick metabolized in a strange way or one of your supplement pills was contaminated and now its "your fault" for participating in a team event where your country loses the gold medal "because of you". When literally it was because the lab didn't return the results on time so that you could be disqualified early and they could send someone else. It SUCKS to be the person who is temp-suspended for accidental contamination, but at least it confines the damage to only you and not your entire team and entire country.
Just finding a positive test doesn't automatically mean the person is guilty and deserves to have it effect their entire team and country. That's why tests should be required to be finished before they ever go to Olympics. It helps IOC avoid scandals and helps protect all the athletes.

I swear IOC acts like it WANTS scandal just so it can get lots of press to get people to watch the Olympics. aka no press is "bad press" because it all generates views and clicks for their Olympics.
Remember that the Harding-Kerrigan scandal remains the most-watched sports event in history. So to me it's clear IOC LOVES scandal because it grabs eyes like nothing else can. So they do as little as possible to prevent it and have no problem with late tests potentially becoming a problem.

The more I read about this case the more realistic it seems that the lab didn't return the result in time on purpose.

 

[Andrina]

The more I read about this case the more realistic it seems that the lab didn't return the result in time on purpose.

Sorry if my question is naive, but I genuinly don't understand why this lab question is so important.

If the lab had given the results after, let's say, 3 days, this would have made the doping case any less important? Kamila would have still gotten her 4 years, no?

Or do people mean that this would have prevented her from taking part in the team event and thereby guaranteed the gold medal for Russia? Well, honestly, I don't think that judges would still have given the gold medal to a team whose "most talented" skater is suspended for doping. And even if so, that still doesn't alleviate the gravity of the doping affaire. So why does this lab question incessantly pops up ?

 

[Amei]

Sorry if my question is naive, but I genuinly don't understand why this lab question is so important.

If the lab had given the results after, let's say, 3 days, this would have made the doping case any less important? Kamila would have still gotten her 4 years, no?

Or do people mean that this would have prevented her from taking part in the team event and thereby guaranteed the gold medal for Russia? Well, honestly, I don't think that judges would still have given the gold medal to a team whose "most talented" skater is suspended for doping. And even if so, that still doesn't alleviate the gravity of the doping affaire. So why does this lab question incessantly pops up ?

If the lab had processed the test in time the whole Olympic mess wouldn't have happened because she would have not been a participant. And as a protected person, it probably wouldn't have been publicly addressed why she was missing the Olympics and everyone would just assume covid or injury. Regarding whether judges would have "given" Olympic gold, there's only so much judging shenanigans that could have been done to theoretically keep Russia from gold, assuming Sasha and/or Anna skate in the team event like they did the individual.

*edit to add: assuming all other facts about Kamila's case remains the same, yes she would have still received a 4 year ban

 

[Moon322]

Or do people mean that this would have prevented her from taking part in the team event and thereby guaranteed the gold medal for Russia? Well, honestly, I don't think that judges would still have given the gold medal to a team whose "most talented" skater is suspended for doping. And even if so, that still doesn't alleviate the gravity of the doping affaire. So why does this lab question incessantly pops up ?

Yes, this would have prevented her going to the Olympics and Shcherbakova, Trusova or Liza could have competed in the Team Event with the same result - gold medal.

The judges would have given the gold to Russia because they were by far the strongest team at the Olympics, and judges need to evaluate the performances presented on those two days, not based on what happened weeks before to an athlete who wasn't even a participant of the Games.

The late test result makes all the difference.

 

[skatingguy]

So why does this lab question incessantly pops up ?

What @Amei said, and also it's a talking point for deflection because as been pointed out in this thread several times the delay at the lab in Sweden was avoidable if proper procedures by RUSADA had been followed.