Court of Arbitration for Sport dismisses Russian appeal over Valieva medal

PARIS : A Russian appeal against the decision to strip them of the figure skating team gold medal at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics was dismissed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport on Thursday.

CAS banned teenage figure skater Kamila Valieva in January for four years for doping, effective from December 2021, a decision that also stripped the Russian Olympic Committee of its gold medal in the team event at the 2022 Games, nearly two years after the competition.

The ROC, the skaters involved in the team event and the country's figure skating federation had appealed that ruling.

"The Appellants had sought a ruling from CAS re-ranking the figure skating Team Event and awarding the gold medal to the ROC," CAS said in a statement.

"Following the hearing that took place on 12 June 2024, the Panel deliberated and concluded that the results of Ms Valieva in the Olympic figure skating team event were correctly disqualified in the Challenged Decision, and that the ROC skating Team could not be awarded the gold medal."

Valieva had tested positive for the banned substance trimetazidine, a drug used to treat angina, at the Russian national championships in December 2021. The result was made known only after she competed in the team event in Beijing, triggering a media frenzy.

Her team had said at the time that the positive test could have been due to a mix-up with her grandfather's heart medication. She was 15 years old at the time.

In its revision of the Beijing results, the International Skating Union demoted the Russian figure skating team from gold to bronze after Valieva's disqualification. United States were awarded the gold medal and Japan won silver.

The doping charge against the young athlete stirred strong emotions in Russia.