Russian Kamila Valieva, who tested positive for a banned substance (trimetazidine) at the end of December, was authorized on Monday by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to participate in the individual event of the Beijing Winter Olympics, scheduled Tuesday and Thursday, of which she is the grand favourite. During a press conference transformed into a monologue, the CAS confirmed the lifting of the provisional suspension of Valieva, decided last Wednesday by the Russian anti-doping agency (Rusada).
Under sixteen, an exceptional circumstance
Five minutes before the start of this press conference, a press release fell to give the information. In the large room of the press center in Beijing, which was full, the journalists were waiting for more explanations and to be able to ask questions to Matthieu Reeb. Arrived on time, the general manager left five minutes later, after reading his notes and announcing that he would not answer any questions.
Alone on the main stage, Matthieu Reed therefore tried to explain the decision of the CAS not to temporarily suspend the young fifteen-year-old Russian. “ The commission determined that the athlete should benefit from exceptional circumstances because she is under the age of sixteen. He is therefore a person under protection under the AMA. The Usada anti-doping rules and the WADA code say nothing about provisional suspensions imposed on people under protection. These rules have specific provisions where there are different levels of proof and for more lenient sanctions in the case of persons under protection. »
Damage that may be irreparable and late notification
The second reason focuses on the consequences of a possible provisional suspension. The committee considered that if a Provisional Suspension was imposed on the Athlete and if it was not sanctioned later, after all procedures had been exhausted, or had a lower sanction, the Provisional Suspension would have caused serious harm. “He evoked, in this case, a” irreparable damage “.
The Secretary General lamented the late notification (by the Stockholm laboratory in charge of the analysis) of the result of this test carried out in December 2021 which hindered the ability of the athlete to establish certain legal questions which could have benefited him. The late notification, in the middle of the Olympics, was not his fault. He said that doping control procedures are usually settled in a week or ten days, especially at the Olympics.
Finally, he recalled that the commission, made up of three independent arbitrators specializing in sports law, had not “decided on the merits of the case nor examined the legal consequences linked to the results of the team competition”, it had answered the question posed: “Should a Provisional Suspension be imposed on the Athlete? »
Then Matthieu Reeb put away his sheets and left the room when he heard journalists telling him that they had questions. Still unanswered. On Tuesday, Kamila Valieva, a team gold medalist who continued to train every day under the gaze of all the media at each appearance, will be on the ice to offer her short program in 26th position. But the case is not over and she could be sanctioned and see her results canceled within several months.