What No One Wants To Admit About Russia's Team Event Win

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While the figure skating world turns its attention to the end of the 2021/2022 season, one puzzle piece lingers out of place. What will happen to Russia’s 2022 Olympic gold medal in the Team Event? After news of Kamila Valieva’s positive drug test hit the headlines, who that gold medal truly belonged was brought into question. There is one problem, though.

[This piece is an analysis backed by facts sourced below.]

For those believing the USA should get the gold medal from the Team Event by default, there is a key factor getting ignored. Kamila Valieva’s contribution to that team medal is undeniable. (At an event that she tested clean at the entire time.) However, the result would have been the same if Russia had put another figure skater in Valieva’s place or used to skate one of the programs. 

Before the 2022 Games, now-Olympic champion, Anna Shcherbakova, was the reigning 2022 World Champion. Had she gotten the opportunity to represent Russia at the Team Event, Shcherbakova would have won her event. The same applies to Alexandra Trusova, who came in second behind Kamila Valieva at the 2022 Russian Nationals. The same event that Valieva tested positive for two billionths of a gram of trimetazidine (TMZ).

There was no angle wherein Russia would not have won the women’s figure skating event. It was not in the cards at all. Sadly, there is no interest in acknowledging that key fact for the USA, which cannot begin to claim that there was not a “clean” Olympics. Kamila Valieva tested clean throughout the 2022 Winter Olympics. There is no way two billionths of a gram of TMZ found in December could power Valieva to success in February. 

Kamila Valieva won her portion of the Team Event fair and square. The theoretical guise that she should not have been allowed to compete in the event and therefore won is also inaccurate. CAS (the Court of Sports Arbitration) ruled that Valieva should be allowed to compete after hearing everything WADA and IOC argued. Hence, she should have competed in the Olympic Team Event.

The only issue would have been withholding the medal. Remember, the test’s 20-day delay in arriving was through no fault of Kamila Valieva or RUSADA (Russian Anti-Doping Agency). That was WADA’s failure, and CAS called flat-out baloney on WADA’s excuse that COVID caused the delay in Page 38, Point 211 of CAS’s verdict. This fiasco is all on WADA, which thrust the issue into the international spotlight at the worst possible time. Convenient, to say the least.

All of this ignores the cold, hard facts that a heart expert and science have said, time and again, including to The New York Times and Popular Science. There is no advantage to taking TMZ. Of course, why believe science when propaganda is so much more effective? The truth is that with or without Kamila Valieva, Russia had the gold medal in the Team Event in the bag. Will the USA ever admit it? I doubt it.