Olympic & Anti-Doping Authorities Under Fire For Allowing 15-Year-Old To Be Shield For ‘Country That Systematically Dopes Its Athletes’ But Plays A Broken System
The International Olympic Committee (IOC), the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and the Olympic sports governance structures that underpin them all, came under fire this morning in the fall out of the latest decision to allow an athlete to compete in major competition despite the presence of a positive doping test.
For its part, the IOC has responded to a CAS decision to allow 15-year-old figure skater Kamila Valieva to continue to compete at the Winter Olympics in Beijing despite a positive doping test with a decision to postpone all relevant skating medals ceremonies until after the conclusion of judgment on the latest Russian doping case.
Valieva’s positive test for the same substance that caused Sun Yang’s first anti-doping fall from grace is also linked to a Russian sports system now supposedly serving its second four-year whole-nation penalty but in reality allowed by systematic hook or by systematic crook to carry on as if the doping crisis of the past decade were a minor blip in the road of Olympic history.
Among the first off their blocks with critical comment was Global Athlete, which issued a statement to say that athletes have lost confidence in the global anti-doping system and status quo in Olympic sports governance,.
In an appeal for “every fan, parent, and athlete to stand together to demand reform” of Olympic governance and the related anti-doping system, beyond decades of similar calls from others in crisis after crisis, Global Athlete slams the relevant authorities for allowing a 15-year-old to be exposed in the way she has been in headlines around the world, in a way that makes her a shield for the country responsible for the worst doping crisis in sport since the days of the GDR.
In an announcement in the past hour, the Court of Arbitration for Sport, lawyers applying every let-out clause available to them, issued a ruling at the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing that will allow Valieva to continue to compete despite the realities of the situation.
CAS announced its decision following an hours-long hearing on Sunday over whether then teenager should be allowed to compete following a failed drug test in December.
The IOC, International Skating Union (ISU) and WADA) had appealed a decision by Russia’s Anti-Doping Agency’s (RUSADA) to lift a provisional suspension imposed on Valieva when news of the test came to light.
In its judgement out of the Winter Olympic Games, the CAS ruled that Valieva should be allowed to compete due to “exceptional circumstances,” including specific provisions linked to her status as a minor, or “protected person”, under the Code.
The CAS panel considered “fundamental principles of fairness, proportionality, irreparable harm,” its statement said, while making no mention of the fairness to others, while perpetrating the notion that a positive test for a substance that enhances performance in a way ‘helpful’, as well as potentially highly harmful, during the long-term preparation of an athlete, is negated by the absence of a positive test during competition.
In a statement, WADA suggested that the CAS had not correctly interpreted the Code as it applies to athletes under 16. WADA noted:
“Wada is disappointed by today’s ruling. While Wada has not received the reasoned award, it appears that the CAS panel decided not to apply the terms of the Code, which does not allow for specific exceptions to be made in relation to mandatory provisional suspensions for ‘protected persons’, including minors.”
WADA
Olympic Scrutiny Misdirected, Say Critics
In response to the Beijing 2022 ruling, Global Athlete reiterated its call for the proper penalty to be imposed on Russia rather than place all spotlights on a 15-year-old:
Athletes have lost confidence in the global anti-doping system. Calls for reform of WADA have been persistent and loud, but they have been continually cast aside and ignored by those seeking to maintain centralized unaccountable power. Sport administrators fear a robust, fully independent, and effective anti-doping system precisely because such a system would hold the perpetrators of institutional doping accountable.
The doping of Kamila Valieva must be a wake-up call for every fan, parent, and athlete to stand together to demand reform. The doping of minor athletes must be stopped. Any country that systematically dopes its athletes cannot be allowed to participate in international sport.
Global Athlete
The CAS ruling is the latest to be interpreted far and wide as representing a victory for rogues hiding behind teenagers and a defeat for all those who have to compete in circumstances they see as unjust and supportive of cheating cultures.
Questions have also been raised by media far and wide on a point raised by investigative reporter Jens Weinreich at Sports & Politics, namely the implied lack of indolence in the system perceived in rulings that allow the IOC and others to hold their hands up and say “not us, but independent arbitration”, even though the rules, the Code, the culture is clearly set by the IOC and all related bodies that the IOC has had a hand in shaping.
Statements from Global Athlete and The IOC
The Global Athlete Statement In Full
Today is another example of the failures of the global sport and anti-doping system. The fact that Kamila Valieva, a fifteen-year-old Russian figure skater, has been found to have a performance enhancing substance in her system is evidence of abuse of a minor. Sport should be protecting its athletes, not damaging them.
Doping and the trauma of a positive test pose grave physical and psychological risks to all athletes but especially to minors. It is unacceptable that these risks have been placed on a fifteen-year-old.
The volume of abuses athletes have endured over the decades can undeniably be attributed to the power imbalance that sport leaders, administrators, and coaches have over athletes. This power imbalance can only be resolved through an equal partnership between athletes and sporting administrators. Athletes must have independent professional representation and the ability to collectively bargain.
It is blatantly clear that Valieva would have never been placed in this position if the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), International Olympic Committee (IOC), and the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) had done their jobs and banned Russia from global sport. Russia has never been incentivized to reform because sport leaders favored politics over principle and rebranding over banning.
Athletes have lost confidence in the global anti-doping system. Calls for reform of WADA have been persistent and loud, but they have been continually cast aside and ignored by those seeking to maintain centralized unaccountable power. Sport administrators fear a robust, fully independent, and effective anti-doping system precisely because such a system would hold the perpetrators of institutional doping accountable.
The doping of Kamila Valieva must be a wake-up call for every fan, parent, and athlete to stand together to demand reform. The doping of minor athletes must be stopped. Any country that systematically dopes its athletes cannot be allowed to participate in international sport.
Global Athlete will continue to push for change by working with athletes, athlete groups, and human rights leaders to demand IOC, WADA, and CAS reforms. The status quo is no longer acceptable.
The Statement from the IOC in Full:
| OC EB decides no medal ceremonies following CAS decision on the case of ROC skater |
| The Executive Board (EB) of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) takes note of the decision by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to allow figure skater Kamila Valieva (Russian Olympic Committee) to continue to compete at the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022. |
The IOC has to follow the rule of law and will therefore have to allow her to compete in the Women’s Single Skating competition on Tuesday, 15 February 2022 and, if qualified, on 17 February 2022.
The CAS has clearly expressed that the decision taken by the Ad-hoc Division today is not a decision on whether Ms Valieva violated the anti-doping rules. It was limited to the sole question of whether Ms Valieva could be provisionally suspended from the Olympic competition following a positive A-sample taken on 25 December 2021.
The management of the case after this positive A-sample has not yet been concluded. Only after due process has been followed can it be established whether Ms Valieva infringed the World Anti-Doping Code (WADC) and would have to be sanctioned.
This inconclusive situation led the IOC EB to the following decisions, after having had initial consultations with the National Olympic Committees (NOCs) concerned:
In the interest of fairness to all athletes and the NOCs concerned, it would not be appropriate to hold the medal ceremony for the figure skating team event during the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 as it would include an athlete who on the one hand has a positive A-sample, but whose violation of the anti-doping rules has not yet been established on the other hand.
Should Ms Valieva finish amongst the top three competitors in the Women’s Single Skating competition, no flower ceremony and no medal ceremony will take place during the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022.
The IOC requests the International Skating Union (ISU), for reasons of fairness, to allow a 25th competitor to participate in the Free Skating part of the competition on 17 February, in case Ms Valieva is ranked in the first 24 of the short programme on 15 February.
The IOC will, in consultation with the athletes and NOCs concerned, organise dignified medal ceremonies once the case of Ms Valieva has been concluded.
Editorial: The CAS ruling on the skater raises more questions than it answers, among the most disturbing those pertaining to athlete welfare. Unscrupulous nations, programs, coaches, doctor and other individuals may well be laughing their socks off in the sick corridors of inappropriate power they have been allowed to populate and thrive in.
Who can see a “green light” for those who think the doping of minors is an acceptable practice and part of the unwritten rule and lore of sport, as in “well, they’re all doing it…”, when in fact, they are not.
It is as if the IOC, anti-doping authorities, CAS, lawyers galore and others remaining silent this day learned nothing from German doping trials 20 years ago that applied a basic principle of law that exists in nations far and wide across the world: when a minor has been enticed or encouraged or obliged to ingest, be injected with, a substance banned in sport without any mitigating circumstances (such as those registered in the TUE system open to Russians just as much as anyone else), the adults are called to account and served criminal sentences/handed criminal convictions that stay on their record for the rest of their lives.
In the Cold War in sport, “ambassadors in tracksuits”, AKA athletes, were sent out into the world to prove that one political system was superior to another. The paperwork showing the planning of State Research Plan 14:25 screams that reality. The motivation was clear, and remains so. The planning and rollout of systematic doping in the GDR was accompanied by warnings from scientists / doctors that there was serious potential for harm before the crime was committed. Mitigation involved using ‘lesser’ athletes as guinea pigs testing substances that had never been put through clinical trials. And when potential turned to proof of harm, it was shrugged off as the collateral damage worth an athlete paying the price for if the state came out on top.
Sport will show it is serious about anti-doping when it acknowledges its horrid history and applies the lessons learned and standards of common law to a realm where such things are sorely lacking because the politics and big-money business underpinning performance sport have been prioritised over athlete welfare for many decades.
Global Athlete and many others are spot on: a major review and reform of sports governance and what it means to have “independent” oversight is long overdue in the bubble of broken Olympic autonomy.