By DAVE SKRETTA and GRAHAM DUNBAR, AP Sports activities Writers
BEIJING (AP) — Kamila Valieva, the 15-year-old Russian famous person who was anticipated to ship her nation its third straight Olympic gold medal in ladies’s determine skating, practiced as common Thursday, hours after experiences that she examined constructive for a banned substance.
Valieva examined constructive for a banned coronary heart treatment earlier than the Beijing Video games, the Russian newspaper RBC reported.
The pattern was reportedly obtained earlier than Valieva received the European championship final month in Estonia, a efficiency that solidified her standing because the chief of Russia’s “quad squad” of elite ladies’s determine skaters.
It’s unclear if Russia is interesting or preventing the consequence. Her look at observe implies that the federation is not accepting any discovering that will eradicate her.
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“She just isn’t suspended,” Russian determine skating federation spokeswoman Olga Ermolina stated, with no additional element.
Valieva ran via her program and skated with teammate Alexandra Trusova whereas getting pointers from coach Eteri Tutberidze on the observe rink. Valieva flashed a smile to certainly one of her coaches close to the tip of the roughly 30-minute session, and not one of the skaters took questions from reporters.
A constructive take a look at may value Russia the gold medal from the workforce competitors and threaten Valieva’s probability to win the person competitors that begins Tuesday. She is the heavy favourite.
The sometimes tight-lipped Russian workforce was much more guarded through the males’s free skate, the place Mark Kondratiuk merely stated, “No remark,” to a sequence of questions in regards to the squad and whether or not he thought Valieva’s case could be resolved. The 18-year-old Kondratiuk carried out each males’s packages through the workforce competitors and stands to lose his gold medal.
The drug detected, trimetazidine, is a metabolic agent that helps forestall angina assaults and treats vertigo, in accordance with the European Union’s medicines company. It’s banned by the World Anti-Doping Company as a result of it could assist endurance and enhance blood movement effectivity.
Probably the most well-known case of trimetazidine in sports activities doping concerned Chinese language star swimmer Solar Yang. The three-time Olympic champion served a three-month ban in 2014. Russian bobsledder Nadezhda Sergeeva examined constructive for trimetazidine on the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics. She was disqualified from the two-woman bobsled occasion and served an eight-month ban.
It’s unclear whether or not Valieva utilized for a therapeutic use exemption or has a historical past of coronary heart issues.
Russian athletes are in Beijing competing because the “Russian Olympic Committee” (ROC), after the nation was banned due to a large state-sponsored doping scheme on the 2014 Sochi Olympics.
The Worldwide Olympic Committee and Switzerland-based Worldwide Testing Company, which oversees the Olympic drug testing program, have declined to touch upon the case. It’s sophisticated as a result of minors have safety throughout the World Anti-Doping Code from being recognized.
The primary indication of an issue with the outcomes of the three-day workforce competitors – which concluded Monday with Russia successful gold, the U.S. silver and Japan bronze – got here when the medal ceremony was postponed indefinitely.
IOC spokesman Mark Adams stated Wednesday that “authorized session” was required between the Olympic committee and the Worldwide Skating Union. He gave few particulars, however acknowledged that “we’ve athletes which have received medals concerned.”
If the Russian workforce is disqualified, the U.S. workforce could be elevated to the gold medal for the primary time within the occasion. Japan could be awarded silver and fourth-place finisher Canada would obtain the bronze.
If any athlete and workforce is disqualified or had outcomes nullified, an attraction is probably going, which may additional delay the medals presentation. The Court docket of Arbitration for Sport has arrange an workplace in Beijing to listen to pressing instances.
Reporters requested the Kremlin in regards to the potential doping situation late Wednesday.
“Let’s, for the sake of understanding, look ahead to some explanations both from our sports activities officers or from the IOC,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated.
Whereas the Russian workforce dominated the competitors, Valieva was the star. Together with successful the brief program and free skate, she turned the primary lady to land a quadruple bounce in Olympic competitors.
Lots of the skaters that took half within the workforce competitors, together with American star Nathan Chen and Russian’s Mark Kondratiuk, are resulting from go away Beijing shortly after competing Thursday. They’d miss any medal ceremony held later.
“Everyone seems to be doing completely every little thing that the scenario could be resolved as quickly as doable,” Adams stated, although he cautioned “as you already know, authorized points can generally drag on.”
Conventional doping is rare in determine skating as a result of further muscle mass is usually a unfavourable. However many skaters have been caught through the years attempting to regulate their weight with diuretics, that are banned for his or her capability to masks steroid use, and different drugs that would give them the slightest edge.
Russian skaters specifically have a historical past of constructive outcomes courting to 2000, when embellished pairs skater Elena Berezhnaya was stripped of a gold medal from the European championships for testing constructive for pseudoephedrine.
Three years in the past, pairs skater Alexandra Koshevaya was given a two-year ban after testing constructive for torasemide, which she claimed to have used for a foot harm. Later that yr, ice dancer Anastasia Shakun was given a one-year suspension for taking furosemide after she claimed a pharmacy prompt it for swelling in her eye.
In July 2020, Maria Sotskova was dealt a 10-year ban simply months after asserting her retirement for allegedly forging a medical certificates to elucidate a doping violation. Sotskova completed eighth on the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang.
Related Press writers Dasha Litvinova, James Ellingworth and Aaron Morrison contributed to this report.
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