An urgent hearing at the Court of Arbitration for Sport will decide whether Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva can compete in the women’s event at the Beijing Olympics, where she is a heavy favorite.
The International Testing Agency said Friday it will lead an appeal on behalf of the IOC against a decision by Russia’s anti-doping agency to lift a provisional ban imposed on the 15-year-old Valieva for failing a doping test in December.
The ITA confirms reports that Valieva tested positive for the banned substance trimetazidine at the Russian national championships in December.
The ITA says the positive test was flagged by a laboratory on Tuesday after Valieva helped the Russians win the team event but before the medal ceremony, which was then postponed. Whether the Russians will lose their gold medal in the team event will be decided later.
Valieva has been continuing to practice in Beijing. For the second straight day, she worked out early at Capital Indoor Stadium as if nothing was amiss. She was flanked during the 45-minute session by Russian teammates Alexandra Trusova and world champion Anna Shcherbakova, both of whom are also coached by Eteri Tutberidze.
Despite missing on that combo at the Rostelecom Cup last fall, when she did a quad-double, Valieva still set a world record there for her free skate. She also set the world record for the short program and total score at the same Grand Prix event in Russia.
Valieva helped the Russians — competing as the Russian Olympic Committee due to its repeated history of doping — to the gold medal in the team figure skating event. The highlight was Sunday when she performed the first two quad jumps by a woman in Winter Olympics history.
Travis Pittman contributed to this report.