According to the defense of the Russian figure skater, Kamila Valieva’s positive doping test was due to a strawberry dessert that her grandfather made for her. This is evident from the verdict that the International Sports Tribunal TAS published on Wednesday.
Last Monday, the TAS imposed a four-year suspension on seventeen-year-old Valieva. This will take effect retroactively on December 25, 2021. On that date, Valieva, then only fifteen, tested positive for the banned substance trimetazidine at the national championships in St. Petersburg. It would have entered her body through a strawberry dessert that her grandfather prepared on a cutting board on which he also crushed his heart medication. “However, the athlete could not provide any concrete evidence of this and could not demonstrate that she did not intentionally take the prohibited substance,” the TAS said.
The TAS followed the World Anti-Doping Agency, which questioned the lack of any medical evidence for Valieva’s grandfather’s heart condition. There was also no evidence that he was prescribed trimetazidine. Moreover, WADA considers it unlikely that a top athlete of her level would take home-made desserts with her through Russia (her grandfather is said to have given them when she left for St. Petersburg on the eve of the National Championships), to eat them during the full competition period. to eat.
Despite the positive test, Valieva was still able to participate in the Winter Games in Beijing in early 2022. The TAS then granted her ad hoc protected status due to her young age and the small number of pieces of evidence at the very beginning of the case. “There can no longer be any question of a protected status,” says the TAS. “Since the athlete could not demonstrate that there was no malicious intent, there is no basis for trying the athlete in a different manner than any other adult athlete.”
