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Kamila Valieva: A litany of fudged decisions on Russian skater has created a sorry mess at the Winter Olympics

The Russian teenager could win two Olympic gold medals that will be stripped within months after escaping a doping suspension despite testing positive for a banned substance

BEIJING — Kamila Valieva is the best figure skater in the world. There was always a chance she could become the story of the Beijing Games: not many people outside winter sport knew who she was but those who did had already lined her up to win the gold medal in the showcase event – women’s figure skating.

No one could have predicted that her Games would blow up in a doping scandal the likes of which few have ever seen.

Without this scandal – and given the way it has been handled by various agencies and bodies, it is now a scandal – Valieva winning gold would have been the banker of the Games. She was the national champion in Russia, the traditional powerhouse of figure skating, and had fallen at January’s European Championships in Estonia yet still won. She cantered through her elements of the team event. A singles title to follow would have been something of a formality.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) said in their ruling that they were worried banning Valieva would cause “irreparable harm”. The ship has long sailed on that. No one will ever hear the name Valieva again and not think “doping”, even if that turns out to be an unfair assessment.

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Whatever the verdict of the eventual doping hearing, it is unlikely to have been the skater’s fault. She is just 15, a minor under the rules of the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) and therefore given significant leniency in cases like these. We say “like these” but there is virtually no precedent. No one has ever had the temerity to dope a 15-year-old. At least, no one who has ever been caught.

“We’ve now created a precedent where your age can get you off the hook,” said Ashley Wagner, a world silver medallist for the USA. “We have two systems: those who can be held accountable, and those who can’t. That being said, Kamila is put in an extremely vulnerable position here.”

None of the blame should be apportioned to Valieva. Fingers instead should be pointed at the bodies who have royally, at best, fudged this process: IOC, Wada, the International Testing Agency (ITA) and, most of all, the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (Rusada).

Rusada failed to fast-track Valieva’s 25 December sample and failed to mark it as priority. The IOC, too, cannot be absolved of blame. They tied their own hands before the decision, which it appears they thought would go in their favour, by saying they would certainly abide by it. They looked petty and contradictory when they announced that they would not hold a medal ceremony if Valieva wins a medal.

The theory is that if Valieva is found to have been doped, they will not have to strip the medals if they do not hand them out. That is nonsense. The physical location of the medals matters not to public perception. Valieva will have won the gold, perhaps, and then have it taken away, even if it never leaves the box in which it is kept.

This Games should have been remembered as the girl power Games: Eileen Gu, Valieva, Lindsey Jacobellis. Instead, it is the disgraced Games, its snow unnatural, its fans uninvited and its medals unpresented. What a sorry mess.

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