The Sunday Times - UK (2022-02-13

18 February 13, 2022The Sunday Times

Winter Olympics

the Russian delegation that their

achievements are not being accorded

sufficient respect. In some cases that

frustration may be justified, but no

one can know when.

The Valieva case is the latest and

most horrifying of many examples

that suggest that the ban on Russia has

not proved to be a deterrent. No one,

now, can be persuaded that “Russia”

is set to come back into the fold any

cleaner than when it left.

The IOC was asked this week if the

Valieva case may now trigger a more

complete version of the “ban”

imposed on Russia. Of course there

was no straight answer.

What is clear, though, is that the

weak application of the ban has

achieved nothing beyond making

a mockery of the policing of clean

sport.

Deas finished 19th in the skeleton

individual event when she took to the

slopes for the mixed event, but that

having another event to focus on had

helped.

“The team have worked amazingly

well to get me back on it,” she said.

She also paid tribute to Nightingale,

20, who is competing at his first

Olympics, saying she was proud of

his performance.

The British women’s curling team

provided some good news, securing a

convincing 10-5 win against the

United States. Two losses in their

previous matches made it a must-win

game for the quartet, who led by four

points to nil before staving off a US

comeback to clinch victory. They

need to finish in the top four after

the round-robin stages to reach the

semi-finals.

On the ice, Cornelius Kersten, GB’s

first long-track speed skater in 30

years, finished 25th in the 500m. He

said that, despite a slip on the first

corner, he was “really happy”. He

races again on Friday in the 1,000m.

There was more disappointment for

Team GB in Beijing after the leading

medal hopes Charlotte Bankes and

Laura Deas were unable to reach

the podium.

For the first time since the skeleton

was re-introduced to the Winter

Olympics 20 years ago, no British

female athletes won a medal. Deas,

who won bronze at Pyeongchang

2018, finished in 19th and the

first-time Olympian Brogan Crowley

22nd.

In an emotional interview with the

BBC, Deas said the result was

“nowhere near what I wanted” but

that it had been a “tough” two years

leading up to the Games for all the

competitors.

“It’s been a long, hard road to get

here,” she said. “It’s really important

for me to be proud of the fact that I

came here and performed.”

There has been speculation over

the equipment used by the British

team and whether it has adversely

affected their results.

John Jackson, a former medal

winner in the bobsleigh, told The Sun

that the British skeleton equipment

looked like it was “draining speed all

the way down”.

He added: “It doesn’t seem to be

working. There is just no speed in

this sled at all.”

When asked about why she

thought the GB team had struggled in

Beijing, Deas said: “Clearly we are

lacking speed and that is something

we are going to have to go away and

look at.

“I don’t know the answer, but we

are going to go away and review and

hopefully come back stronger.”

The closest Britain came to

winning a medal on the skeleton

track at these Games was the surprise

silver for Australia, won by Jaclyn

Narracott, who is coached by — and

the partner of – the former British

skeleton medal winner Dominic

Parsons. The gold was taken by

Hannah Neise of Germany.

Yesterday morning one of Britain’s

most promising medal hopes,

Charlotte Bankes, finished sixth with

her partner, Huw Nightingale, in the

mixed team snowboard cross. The

26-year-old is the women’s world

champion but suffered a shock exit

from the individual event in the

quarter-finals on Wednesday.

Bankes said she was still “not quite

over” her performance in the

Deas left despairing by lack of GB sled speed

I

n the late afternoon light at the

Zhangjiakou cross-country ski-

ing centre yesterday, Veronika

Stepanova, on the fourth leg for

the Russia relay team, put in

another kick and finally broke

the resistance of Sofie Krehl, the

German who was their last

remaining rival in the race.

With that, Stepanova was able to

break clear to be greeted by her over-

joyed team-mates at the finish line.

This was Russia’s sixth medal in the

seven cross-country events at these

Beijing Olympics. Except they are not

“Russia”, are they? And therein lies

the problem.

The Russia team are not allowed to

compete under the name of their

nation in Beijing. Their “country” has

been banned from the Games because

of the state-sponsored doping pro-

gramme that was orchestrated to

hijack the medal table at the Sochi

2014 Olympics.

The ban was put in place partly as a

punishment and partly as a deterrent.

Here, though, you wonder if anyone

has been deterred at all.

After winning their gold in the

women’s relay yesterday, one of the

quartet, Yulia Stupak, was asked

whether their victory was a surprise.

“It was not a shock for us,” she

replied.

Earlier in the week, when Alexan-

der Bolshunov, another Russian

cross-country champion, was asked

to explain his emphatic victory in the

30km skiathlon, he did not take to the

line of questioning so gently. “You’re

hinting at doping,” he replied. “This

should have nothing to do with sports.

I believe it’s wrong to ask us these

questions.” Yet who cannot be asking

these questions now?

The Kamila Valieva scandal has

shredded the credibility of her team.

They are not permitted to compete

under the name of their motherland,

so they have been competing under

the title “Russian Olympic Commit-

tee” (ROC).

It is a minor alteration, but if a

15-year-old can be involved in per-

formance-enhancing doping, has

there really been any alteration to

their approach to clean sport?

The Valieva case rumbles on in

Beijing. Yesterday she was back train-

ing again at the Capital Indoor Arena.

Today her case will be heard by the

Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

Tomorrow a decision is finally

expected. If she is cleared, she will

compete in the women’s figure skat-

ing, which starts on Tuesday.

The shock, however, runs deep as

we contemplate how a banned

performance-enhancing substance

got into her system and who was

responsible for it being there. Many

have been asking how this ROC team

got here at all and why the

International International Olympic

Committee did not enforce the ban

more stringently.

The answer is that the initial four-

year ban was reduced on an appeal, to

the Court of Arbitration for Sport, to

two. There is also a provision that

allows Russians to compete as neutral

athletes if they are confirmed, by

their federations, to

be clean.

This is a loophole that has

been afforded to Russia and

that has been merrily

exploited.

The reason that the

Russia cross-country

team have their

doubters is because,

for instance, two Rus-

sian cross-country skiers

tested positive and were

banned in 2019 and

another followed the

year later.

Or, for instance, when

NO END TO RUSSIA’S SHAME

BERNAT ARMANGUE

Kamila Valieva, who

won gold in the

figure skating team

event, has

tested positive for a

banned substance

OWEN

SLOT

The Times Chief Sports Writer, Beijing

Lindsey Jacobellis and Nick

Baumgartner have been

competing with athletes half their

age in the team snowboarding

cross event at the Beijing Games

but the US veterans proved

nothing beats experience by

winning gold in a nail-biting final.

Jacobellis, 36, and 40-year-old

Baumgartner edged out Italy to

win the top prize in the inaugural

mixed team event, while Canada

settled for bronze. It was a second

gold in Beijing for Jacobellis, who

won the women’s event 16 years

after she fell on the penultimate

jump in Turin.

Baumgartner admitted it had

been “tough” to watch rookies

take over the sport, but said being

older had its advantages: “You

want [it] more because you know

there’s an expiration day coming.”

US VETERANS ECLIPSE

SNOWBOARD STARLETS

Tatiana Sorina delivered a

dominant performance in

the World Cup at the end

of 2020, there were

stories in the Scandina-

vian media doubting

whether she had com-

peted clean. Sorina

was one of the quartet

who won gold in the

cross-country event

yesterday.

Or that, 12 years ago,

Bolshunov’s coach, Yuri

Borodavko, was suspended from

coaching at the top level for two years

because one of his athletes had tested

positive for a blood-booster.

Or because Anatoli Khovantsev, the

former Russia biathlon coach, said

that a few years ago he could “count

the number of clean biathletes on

one hand”.

Or because one of those biathletes,

Alexander Loginov, who tested posi-

tive and served a doping ban, is back

competing here in Beijing and already

has a bronze medal to his name.

How deep does this run? In Novem-

ber 2020 a special review was com-

missioned to investigate allegations of

malpractice at the International

Biathlon Union. It uncovered evi-

dence of a conspiracy to cover up

eight Russian doping cases.

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The loophole that

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