BEIJING —
Teenage Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva will go for a second
Beijing Olympics title on Thursday, the next chapter in a damaging doping scandal which
has overshadowed the Games.
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The 15-year-old
burst into tears after topping Tuesday’s first half of the women’s singles
competition to put herself in prime position ahead of the all-important free
skate.
Valieva has
dominated the second week of the Games in the Chinese capital after the Court
of Arbitration for Sport ruled that she should not be thrown out of the
Olympics despite failing a drugs test in December.
Valieva played a
central role in propelling the Russians to skating team gold last week, before
news of her test broke, but no medal ceremony ever took place and will not
during these Olympics — unprecedented for a Games.
There will also
be no medal ceremony if Valieva — the pre-Games favorite for gold — comes in
the top three on Thursday.
CAS cleared her
to stay at the Games, citing her age as one of the “exceptional circumstances”,
but she has not been absolved of doping and still faces further investigation
in a case that looks set to rumble on well after the action ends in Beijing.
Games testing
authorities said last week that the teenager tested positive for trimetazidine,
a drug used to treat angina but which is banned for athletes by the
World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) because it can boost endurance.
In a fresh twist,
The New York Times reported that her sample also contained the substances
Hypoxen and L-Carnitine, which are also used to treat heart conditions. They
are not on WADA’s prohibited list.
Senior IOC member
Denis Oswald said Tuesday that Valieva informed the CAS panel that she tested
positive because of “contamination” from her grandfather’s medicine.
The New York
Times report said the grandfather provided a pre-recorded video message to a
hearing with Russian anti-doping officials on February 9 in which he said he
used trimetazidine.
Valieva’s mother
told the same hearing her daughter took Hypoxen for heart “variations”, the
Times said.
The affair puts
the spotlight once more on doping by Russian athletes, who are not allowed to
take part at these Games under their flag because of a state-sponsored doping
program that reached its peak at its home 2014 Sochi Olympics.
Some of Valieva’s
fellow skaters made plain their anger that they had to compete against her.
“I don’t know
every detail of the case, but from the big picture obviously a doping athlete
competing against clean athletes is not fair,” the 16-year-old American skater
Alysa Liu said.
Gold for France
Clement Noel claimed France’s first alpine skiing gold medal of these
Games when he won the men’s slalom.
Noel was sixth
fastest after the first run but his lightning-quick second run gave him a
combined total of 1min 44.09sec to hold off Johannes Strolz, the Austrian
former traffic policeman who had already won a gold in the alpine combined
event.
“That was one of the
most important races in my career. It’s not often that you are able to win a
medal in the
Olympic Games,” said 24-year-old Noel.
“It’s one shot —
one minute and 40 seconds every four years.”
In the men’s ice
hockey, Slovakia eliminated the US in the quarterfinals, stunning the Americans
with a tying goal in the final minute of regulation before winning 3–2 in a
shootout.
Deprived of its
National Hockey League (NHL) stars by the pandemic, the USA squad of relative
unknowns had inspired comparisons to the overachieving 1980 gold-medal winning
“Miracle on Ice” team as they went 3–0 in group play.
They were 44
seconds from clinching a spot in the Beijing semifinals when Slovakia’s captain
Marek Hrivik slotted home to tie it 2–2 and send the game into overtime.
Slovakia scored
once in the penalty shootout, leaving USA captain Andy Miele with one last
shot, but his effort was smothered by goalie Patrik Rybar.
There was better
news for the US with Alexander Hall winning the men’s freeski slopestyle gold,
taking the title ahead of countryman Nick Goepper.
In cross-country
skiing,
Germany triumphed in the women’s team sprint classic and Norway took
the men’s honours.
Sweden won gold
in the biathlon women’s 4x6 kilometer relay.
Norway top the
medals table with 13 golds, ahead of 10 for Germany 10 and the
US have eight.
The Games end on
Sunday.
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