British journalists receive death threats from Russia over Valieva controversy

The journalists who broke the story of Russian skater Kamila Valieva’s positive drugs test on Wednesday say they have faced death threats, abuse, and warnings they should check their tea.

A separate British newspaper journalist who asked Valieva whether she was a doper on Friday has also faced intense criticism from Russian members of parliament and online.

Such was the anger in Russia when Duncan Mackay and Michael Pavitt of the Inside the Games website initially broke the story that Valieva had failed a test that both men were deluged with messages dismissing their reporting as lies – until the Independent Testing Agency confirmed it was true on Friday.

Pavitt confirmed to the Guardian that Mackay had faced death threats while he had also been subjected to “significant” abuse. Other members of the team said they were also confronted by Russian journalists in the main media centre in Beijing.

Meanwhile Mackay was also told by one respondent on Twitter: “You will be positive when you discover some new substances in your tea”, an apparent reference to the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006.

When he replied that he didn’t drink tea, and tended to avoid the Millennium Hotel in Mayfair, he was told: “Fortunately, you know what bankruptcy is. Prepare yourself to ride this road again, bruh.”

The anger among the Russian public and media also flared up again on Friday when a British journalist asked Valieva, who was found to have the angina drug trimetazidine in her body on a test taken on Christmas Day, whether she had doped and was a cheat.

The skater refused to answer and the journalist was then surrounded by Russian journalists and told his questions were inappropriate to a 15-year-old child. When the story