WADA referred Valieva’s case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has transferred the case of Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the agency’s president Vitold Banka said on November 8.

“I can confirm that WADA has formally referred the case directly to the Court of Arbitration for Sport”– said the President of WADA.

He reported that no progress had been made, despite official notification from RUSADA that Valieva’s case would be resolved as soon as possible.

On October 22, WADA called on RUSADA to make public information on the Valieva case, as it “has already become public.” At the same time, before that, the Russian Anti-Doping Agency stated that it would not make public the decision in the case of figure skater Kamila Valieva in order to protect her as a member of the ROC team.

Recall that Valieva is currently the champion of Russia and Europe. At the Beijing Olympics, the figure skater as part of the national team won gold in the team tournament.

After him, a big scandal erupted. It became known about a positive doping test, which was handed over a few months before the Olympics. Many experts pointed to oddities: for some reason, the result of the test from the Russian Championship appeared only at the end of the team competition at the Games. At the same time, the figure skater managed to perform at the European Championship after the Russian Championship and win it. She was also tested there and her samples were clean. There were no complaints in all tests before and during the Olympic Games.

After the team tournament, Valieva’s participation in the individual championship was in doubt. First, the Disciplinary Anti-Doping Committee withdrew from her a temporary disqualification imposed by RUSADA, then there was a closed hearing in the Sports Arbitration, which made a decision on the admission of 15-year-old Valieva to the tournament at that time.

At the same time, all this time the athlete was under great pressure. Stronger pressure came from Western journalists at the Games, who bombarded the athlete with unpleasant questions after each official training session.

All this affected the skater’s performance in the individual tournament. The favorite of the season could not cope with her nerves and made many mistakes in the free program, although she was in the lead after a short one. As a result, Valieva became the fourth. Another Russian woman won the Olympics – Anna Shcherbakova. “Silver” went to her compatriot Alexandra Trusova, who had a nervous breakdown after the announcement of the results of the tournament. Having performed five quadruple jumps in one program for the first time in the history of figure skating, Trusova counted on winning, but a fall in the short and blots in the free program allowed her rival Shcherbakova to take the gold medal with a clean performance of two programs.