Valieva team claim doping positive down to grandfather’s heart medication

Kamila Valieva’s legal team has claimed that her positive drugs test may have come from a contaminated glass of water that contained traces of her grandfather’s heart medication.

Speaking after the daily media briefing in Beijing, International Olympic Committee member Denis Oswald confirmed the 15-year-old Russian’s explanation for her positive test for the banned angina drug trimetazidine was “contamination which happened with a product her grandfather was taking”.

The Russian newspaper Pravda said that Valieva’s lawyer Anna Kozmenko made a similar argument when the skater’s court of arbitration for sport hearing took place on Sunday.

“There can be completely different ways how it got into her body,” Kozmenko is reported to have said. “For example, grandfather drank something from a glass, saliva got in, this glass was somehow later used by an athlete. Or the drug lay down on some surface, traces remained, the drug lay down on this surface, which the athlete then drank.”

On Monday, Cas cleared Valieva to compete in the women’s skating event, which starts on Tuesday and concludes Thursday, and for which she is the heavy favourite for gold.

However if she does claim a medal the IOC has already said there will be no ceremony afterwards. Meanwhile the Russian’s doping case is ongoing and it could mean that her results – and any medals – from Beijing are stripped from her in the months ahead.

On Tuesday Valieva, who helped the Russian team win gold last week, broke her silence by saying that the trimetazidine doping scandal has left her tearful and “emotionally fatigued”.

She told Russia’s TV Channel One: “These days have been very difficult for me, emotionally. I am happy but emotionally fatigued. That is why these tears