Drug test positive Russian skater — Kamila Valieva — gets to keep Olympics competing — on the basis of a foolish Court of Arbitration for Sports decision

© 2022 Peter Free

 

14 February 2022

 

 

The best standards are no standards?

 

So, apparently, says the Court of Arbitration for Sport — with regard to Russian Olympic figure skater, Kamila Valieva.

 

A few days ago, I aired the circumstances-based suspicion that positive test result that a Swedish lab had found for Russian skater Kamila Valieva might have been bogus. At no point, however, did I suggest that Olympics authorities could (or should) ignore the positive test.

 

In spite of the obviously prevailing requirement that Valieva be ejected from continuing on in the Olympic skating competition, the Court of Arbitration for Sports decided to temporarily keep her in the Winter competition. This decision arrived, apparently without the Court addressing any of the merits of the performance-enhancing substance allegation.

 

Instead, the Court decided that Valieva, who is 15 and legally a child, might be irreparably harmed by not continuing on in Beijing. Even though, in my estimation, Valieva is already drowned in a positive test suspicion that would have disqualified any other athlete by rule:

 

 

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) said it was disappointed with the ruling because 'it appears that the CAS panel decided not to apply the terms of the Code, which does not allow for specific exemptions to be made in relation to mandatory provisional suspensions for "protected persons", including minors,

 

'Concerning the analysis of the athlete’s sample, WADA always expects Anti-Doping Organisations to liaise with the laboratories in order to ensure they expedite the analysis of samples so that the results are received prior to athletes travelling to or competing in a major event.'

 

The statement levied blame at Russia for not getting Valieva's sample fast-tracked so that there was a result before the Olympics in Beijing. 

 

'The sample in this case was not flagged by RUSADA as being a priority sample when it was received by the anti-doping laboratory in Stockholm, Sweden. This meant the laboratory did not know to fast-track the analysis of this sample,' it said. 

 

© 2022 Nick Fagge and Shekar Bhatia, Final nail in the coffin for Beijing's farcical Winter Olympics: Outrage as Russian skater Kamila Valieva, 15, is CLEARED to continue at Games because banning her over doping claims 'would cause her irreparable harm', Daily Mail (14 February 2022)

 

 

The Court's "irreparable harm" logic is rules-defeating

 

Either drug-use violates sports paradigms, or it doesn't.

 

Either the positive test exists, or it does not.

 

Why punish clean athletes by forcing them to continue competing against someone who is, on at least the preponderance of existing evidence, not?

 

And very pertinently, why deprive clean competitors of their once in a lifetime Olympic medal ceremonies just because:

 

 

(a) someone cheated

 

but

 

(b) gets to compete anyway

 

until

 

(c) a further decision is reached as to

 

(i) the validity of the allegedly positive drug test

 

and, pending that decision

 

(ii) any claim that Valieva might (or might not) have on Olympic medals earned?

 

 

Furthermore, why would one reward Russian Federation scheming, if such took place?

 

'Scheming' here meaning Russia's (suspected) delayed test sample sending, as well as its allegedly 'no hurry' labeling of the sample.

 

It cannot be that challenging to quickly track when the December Valieva sample was taken and how it was labeled, transmitted and processed.

 

In other words, the Court should have addressed some of the administrative merits of the drug-use allegation.

 

If, on their face, those testing circumstances seem as applicable as any other drug test, the rules-mandated elimination outcome should have been immediately applied.

 

 

Valieva's age has nothing to do with her alleged cheating

 

Especially so, in a sport that is noticeably already filled with juveniles.

 

Are kids going to get a routine pass on drug-test findings?

 

And especially so, after their handlers game the test system's timing?

 

And why, in the sports context, should a child have superior rights — in an Olympic competition — as compared to a much older competitor, who is, arguably, at the end of their career and has worked for decades to just get to the these Games?

 

In my view, the "protected (child) class" argument has been erroneously carried over from other legal contexts — where it should apply — to this athletics arena, where it should not.

 

 

Overall

 

This Court decision establishes yet another situationally protected class for connivers and manipulators to weave their slimy ways through.

 

 

The moral? — Leave it to international Namby-Pambys . . .

 

. . . to mess up yet another relatively straightforward matter.

 

From this preponderantly asinine 'Court' decision, we can infer that — eventually speaking:

 

 

it is only cheating when an adult

 

presumably of a certain skin color

 

culture

 

religion

 

and

 

geographic region

 

does it.

 

 

Those responsibility-enhancing (or avoiding) demographics are, we can assume, to be arbitrarily defined by a Deciding Panel — wherever and however said panel is comprised — upon a situationally rolling and variable basis.

 

So much for rules, immediacy and equal treatment in sports.

 

Via this Court's intrusively silly decision, we pollute the Athletic Environment with the same interminable bullshit that the judicial system creates, perpetuates and feeds itself with.

 

Arguably the worst of both worlds.