15
champions has emerged from the school,
rival skaters and coaches have accused head
coach Eteri Tutberidze and her team of put-
ting medals above their athletes’ long-term
success and health. Until Valieva, however,
none of her skaters has been known to test
positive for a banned substance. “It doesn’t
feel like they are coaches at all, but dog
trainers,” says Adam Rippon, a 2018 bronze
medalist and coach of current Olympian
Mariah Bell. “They’re running a circus.”
Because Valieva is a minor, antidoping
officials are focusing their investigation on
the adults around her. The 15-year-old’s
sample contained trimetazidine (TMZ), a
heart medication prescribed to people with
angina to improve blood flow. TMZ is on
the World Anti-Doping Agency’s banned
list because it can be used by athletes to
enhance performance by helping the heart
muscle endure longer bouts of training. Her
sample also reportedly contained two other
allowed substances that can help improve
blood flow and possibly endurance.
Valieva’s lawyer argued that she could
have been “contaminated” with TMZ,
which her grandfather takes, by sharing a
drinking glass or coming into contact with
a surface where the medication was placed.
Many experts are skeptical. While he isn’t
privy to details of the case, Dr. Steven Nis-
sen, a cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic,
says the contamination route is “very far-
fetched. It seems very, very unlikely.”
The fact that Valieva continued to com-
pete raises more profound questions for the
Olympic movement and its mission to pro-
mote fair play in sports. Athletes and anti-
doping officials have criticized what they
call the weak punishment of the Russian
program, arguing that only a complete ban
of the country from all international events
could even begin to stop the continued flout-
ing of doping rules. Without such aggressive
action, it’s the athletes who bear the burden
of the consequences. “This is a big hit to the
Olympic movement,” says Canadian Scott
Moir, a coach and two-time Olympic gold
medalist in ice dancing. “I’m questioning
why I walked into schools for the past
12 years of my life and told kids what pride
I took in being an Olympian.”
◁
The 15-year-old Valieva
has become the biggest
story of the Games for
all the wrong reasons
CLIMATE
BY CHAD DE GUZMAN
‘The Olympics have
landed in a place
not climatically
suitable.’