On Thin Ice in Beijing

Why was a Russian figure skater who tested positive for doping still allowed to compete?

- By Maxine Peters

THE world watched in awe as she performed one of the most technically difficult manoeuvres in figure skat­ ing: a quadruple jump, spinning through the air like a glittering top and landing on the ice with seemingly effortless grace. And Kamila Valieva performed the feat not once but twice, helping her team secure first place at the Beijing Winter Olympics.

Valieva, just 15 and regarded as the one of the finest figure skaters in recent his­ tory, became the first woman in the annals of the competition to nail the gravity­defying move.

“I had this burden of responsibility,” Valieva, competing under the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) banner, said afterwards. “But I came out the winner.”

The praise was effusive. “We will be talking about this moment for the next 100 years,” Tara Lipinski, a commentator for the NBC Olympics channel, said.

Well, she was right – but tragically, Valieva’s skill on the ice will not be what lingers in the memory. A day after her win it was announced that three medi­ cations used to treat heart conditions had been found in a sample taken from her in December.

Two of them aren’t on the ban­ ned list but third, trimetazidine, has been on the World Anti­Doping Agency’s list of prohibited substances since January 2014.

The results of Valieva’s test had only come to light in Beijing because of a backlog in testing after the laboratory in Stockholm used to test the sample was hit by an outbreak of Covid, causing the delay.