Time USA (2022-02-28)

14 TIME February 28/March 7, 2022

Committee (IOC) has ruled that no medals

will be awarded in either event until the re-

view of Valieva’s doping case is concluded,

which could take months.

The decisions put in limbo not only

the results of the team event, but also the

women’s individual competition, in which

Valieva was the favorite for gold. And it has

had disastrous consequences for the eff orts

to make the Olympics a model of clean and

fair competition.

For skating fans, the news is at once

shocking and unsurprising. Russian ath-

letes are competing in Beijing under the

IOC fl ag, as the Russian Olympic Commit-

tee, after the country was sanctioned in

2019 for running a massive state- sponsored

doping program that was unearthed fol-

lowing the 2014 Olympics in Sochi. Sev-

eral dozen Russian athletes have had their

Olympic medals stripped in the wake of the

revelations because of doping violations.

Until now, however, fi gure skating has

largely escaped the taint.

The Moscow training center where Va-

lieva skates, however, is shrouded in con-

troversy. As a notably quick succession of

DOPING

Russia at center

of another Olympic

drug scandal

BY ALICE PARK

THE WOMEN’S FIGURE SKATING EVENT IN

Beijing was teed up to be a celebration: a

showcase for a remarkable group of Russian

teenagers who are pushing the boundar-

ies of their sport, with jaw-dropping qua-

druple jumps proving that women are capa-

ble of the same athletic feats as their male

counterparts.

Then one of those women—the young-

est and most talented of the three—tested

positive for a performance- enhancing drug.

Kamila Valieva, 15, failed a drug test taken

on Christmas Day, but because of delays in

reporting, her results didn’t become avail-

able until after she had competed in the

team event at the Olympics, where she be-

came the fi rst woman ever to land a quadru-

ple jump at the Games, helping the Russian

team top the U.S. for gold. She successfully

appealed a suspension, and ultimately an

independent arbitration court determined

that Valieva could continue to skate while

a separate investigation into her positive

test continued. The International Olympic

‘This is a big hit to the

Olympic movement.’

—SCOTT MOIR, TWO-TIME OLYMPIC

GOLD MEDALIST

SNOWBOARDING

CURLING

BIATHLON

THE BRIEF

OLYMPICS

VALIEVA: ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT—AFP/GETTY IMAGES; SNOW: DOUG MILLS—THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX; GETTY IMAGES (3)