Teen figure skating sensation Kamila Valieva won a gold medal having earlier failed a drug test and Olympic officials will fight Russia’s decision to let her compete at the Winter Olympics, the International Testing Agency (ITA) said yesterday.
The 15-year-old’s gold medal and future now hang in the balance as the International Olympic Committee (IOC) attempts to draw a line in the sand over Russian doping.
The pint-sized skater is one of the youngest Olympic athletes to test positive for a banned substance and many fans around the world expressed outrage over how she came to have a banned angina drug in her system.
Photo: EPA/EFE
“It is a shame, and the responsible adults should be banned from the sport forever,” German figure-skating great Katarina Witt wrote on Facebook. “What they knowingly did to her, if true, cannot be surpassed in inhumanity and makes my athlete’s heart cry infinitely.”
Russian athletes are competing in Beijing without their flag and national anthem because of sanctions for previous doping violations. Russia has acknowledged some shortcomings in its implementation of anti-doping rules, but denies running a state-sponsored doping program.
A defiant Kremlin yesterday said that it was convinced Valieva’s positive drug test was a “misunderstanding.”
Photo: Reuters
“Hold your head up, you’re a Russian,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov urged Valieva in a conference call with reporters. “Go proudly and beat everyone.”
Valieva delivered one of the Winter Games highlights when she landed the first quadruple jumps by a woman in Olympic competition on Monday.
However, her Olympic dream turned into a nightmare yesterday when the ITA revealed publicly that she had tested positive for banned angina drug trimetazidine in a urine sample collected by Russian authorities at the national championships in St Petersburg on Dec. 25.
The Russian Anti-Doping Agency imposed a provisional suspension on Valieva after Tuesday’s result. She appealed a day later and her ban was lifted. The Russians did not disclose publicly the reason for removing the ban.
The IOC, International Skating Union and the World Anti-Doping Agency yesterday said that they would ask the Court of Arbitration for Sport to overturn the Russian decision to lift her ban.
SPEEDSKATING
AP, BEIJING
Nils van der Poel of Sweden yesterday broke his own world record and captured his second gold medal of the Games with a dominant victory the in men’s 10,000m.
Van der Poel added to his victory in the 5,000m, which was a much closer affair. This time, it was just the outspoken 25-year-old versus the clock.
Swinging both arms to build extra speed over his closing laps, Van der Poel crossed the line in 12 minutes, 30.74 seconds.
The Swede easily broke the world mark of 12:32.95 he set in February last year and was more than 9 seconds ahead of the Olympic record set four years ago by reigning champion Ted-Jan Bloemen of Canada.
ALPINE SKIING
AP, BEIJING
Lara Gut-Behrami finally has her Olympic gold medal, winning the super-G in Beijing yesterday, and it came in the event that has caused the Swiss skier so much disappointment on one of sport’s biggest stages.
Two-time Olympic gold medalist Mikaela Shiffrin finished a distant ninth, 0.79 seconds behind Gut-Behrami. At least the American finished this time, after skiing out in both her previous races.
Gut-Behrami’s gold comes after two consecutive fourth-placed finishes in super-G at the Olympics. The 30-year-old has two bronze medals, including one from Monday’s giant slalom. She cried after getting only bronze in the downhill in 2014.
“I just tried to ski today, nothing more, nothing less,” Gut-Behrami said when asked if her near misses had played on her mind.
“Sometimes that’s the problem: We just try to think too much and try to do something different at the Olympics. Today I just know that probably it is going to be my last Olympic super-G of my life and I just wanted to show something great,” she said.
SNOWBOARD
AFP, ZHANGJIAKOU, China
Japan’s Ayumu Hirano yesterday turned anger into Olympic gold, shrugging off a perceived injustice to win the men’s snowboard halfpipe title with a dramatic final ride.
The dreadlocked Hirano, a silver medalist at both the 2014 and 2018 Games, said he “didn’t understand” how he could be in second place behind Australia’s Scotty James after a jaw-dropping second run.
He simply got back on his board and put in an even more spectacular performance on his third and final attempt, claiming the gold on the last run of the competition.
“I didn’t understand it — I was really angry,” the normally mild-mannered 23-year-old said of the score for his second run, which saw him become the first rider ever to land the triple cork move and complete the run. “But I turned that anger to my advantage in the third run. It helped me concentrate even more than usual.”
Hirano finished with 96.00 points, beating James into silver on 92.50 and giving Switzerland’s Jan Scherrer the bronze on 87.25.
American Shaun White, who was appearing in his final competition before retiring, finished fourth.
Every rider paid tribute to White, the 35-year-old triple gold medalist who cut an emotional figure after falling on his final run with a medal in sight, but the day belonged to Hirano, who White called “a true athlete.”
“I know he’s wanted it and it’s his time,” White said. “I’m happy for him, I really am.”
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