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Arbitrators cleared Kamila Valieva to continue competing in the Beijing Olympics despite failing a doping test, but officials said they would withhold medals until her case was resolved.
Update: Kamila Valieva‘s sample had three substances sometimes used to help the heart.
BEIJING — On Tuesday, Kamila Valieva, one of the Olympics’ youngest and biggest stars, will take to the ice and, if all goes as she plans, perform spinning jump after spinning jump on her way to an expected victory in women’s figure skating’s signature event.
But if she succeeds, she will not receive a medal. And neither will any of her competitors.
Olympic officials, faced with perhaps the most fraught controversy at these Winter Games, said on Monday that they planned to withhold medals in any event in which Valieva, 15, places in the top three until after her doping case is resolved, perhaps months from now.
The extraordinary decision has frustrated and angered many in the sport who say honest athletes are suffering unjustly because of Valieva’s presence in the competition after she failed a drug test, Russia’s history of flouting the rules and a significant failure by the system meant to weed out drug cheats.
“It’s all just so unfair,” said Adam Rippon, a former Olympic skater who is coaching the U.S. figure skater Mariah Bell at the Games. “And now it’s also so unfair to all of these ladies because their whole Olympic experience is now wrapped up in the controversy because a country doesn’t want to play by the damn rules.”
Valieva, whose positive test for a banned heart medication from a urine sample taken in December was revealed late last week, is heavily favored to win the women’s singles competition, which begins Tuesday and concludes Thursday. If she finishes in the top three, neither she nor the other medalists will receive the traditional flowers, medal or moment on the podium. Nor will the Russian team receive its gold medal for winning the team event last week, in which Valieva starred.
The International Olympic Committee said in a statement that it would conduct “dignified medal ceremonies once the case of Ms. Valieva has been concluded.” Its decision to potentially withhold medals from clean athletes came hours after a panel of arbitrators declined to reinstate a suspension that most likely would have ended Valieva’s Olympics.
Far Above the Rest
Skating for the Russian team last week, Kamila Valieva blew away her competitors in the women’s free skate.
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