A four-year ban is handed to teenage Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva following an appeal against an earlier decision to clear her of doping.
Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva has been given a four-year ban for doping after initially being cleared.
A Russian Anti-Doping Agency (Rusada) investigation found the teenager bore “no fault or negligence” for a failed test before the 2022 Winter Olympics.
But the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) has upheld an appeal by the World Anti-Doping Agency.
News of Valieva’s failed test only emerged after she had helped Russia to team gold in Beijing at the age of 15.
The ban has been back dated to 25 December 2021 and the Cas panel has also ordered “the disqualification all competitive results achieved” from that date.
However, it said the power to strip Russia of the gold medal was “not within the scope of this arbitration procedure and will have to be examined by the sports organisations concerned”.
Cas said Valieva, who is now aged 17, did not contest the presence of a banned substance and it was asked to decide what sanctions, if any, she should face.
“Ms Valieva was not able to establish, on the balance of probabilities and on the basis of the evidence before the panel, that she had not committed the Anti-Doping Rule Violation (ADRV) intentionally,” it said in its ruling.
It added it had no bearing “whether the athlete is an adult or a Protected Person” at the time of the failed test.
More to follow..