WADA deflects blame again for Valieva debacle
Officials at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) have responded angrily to suggestions that they were at fault in delays to the test sample at the center of Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva’s Olympic scandal.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) issued detailed reasoning on Friday outlining why a panel had cleared Valieva to compete in the individual women’s figure skating in Beijing.
CAS was critical of the time it took a WADA-accredited laboratory in Stockholm to return the results of a doping sample which was taken on December 25 yet was only confirmed on February 8 – after the 15-year-old had already helped the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) to gold in the team event.
WADA responded angrily to that rebuke, again attempting to pass the blame onto the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) for supposedly not indicating the sample was high priority.
“WADA reiterates that it is the clear responsibility of the Anti-Doping Organization that initiated the test, in this case RUSADA, to communicate effectively with the laboratory to ensure the timely analysis of samples, especially in the lead-up to a major event,” a statement read.
“Unfortunately, RUSADA did not flag the high-priority nature of the sample despite being informed by the laboratory of delays being caused by a Covid-19 outbreak among its staff.”
RUSADA has rejected those claims, while the CAS report stated that the delay to the test result from the WADA lab was “worrying.”
“Although all athletes’ samples are anonymous, it should be possible for anti-doping laboratories and authorities to handle anti-doping tests in a swift manner when the samples are collected at significant pre-events that may constitute selection events for the Olympic Games, such as the Russian National Championships in figure skating,” CAS said.
Elsewhere in its statement, WADA accused the CAS panel of “re-writing” the WADA Code when it took into consideration Valieva’s status as a ‘protected person’ due to her age, and how that impacted demands for a suspension to be reimposed.
“This re-writing of the Code, which would apparently allow ‘protected persons’ to continue competing after testing positive for non-specified substances without any clarification of the circumstances, risks undermining the integrity of sporting competition and the confidence of athletes that they are competing on a level playing field,” WADA claimed.
WADA had teamed up with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and International Skating Union (ISU) in a bid to reimpose a provisional ban on Valieva after it had been lifted by RUSADA.
Valieva did compete but suffered heartbreak on Thursday in Beijing, producing an error-strewn final routine as the pressure of her ordeal finally took its toll.
The strong gold medal favorite heading into the event, the tearful Valieva finished fourth as Russian teammates Anna Shcherbakova and Alexandra Trusova won gold and silver respectively.
