Kamila Valieva blamed her positive drug test on WHAT?!?
During the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, the 17-year-old Russian figure skater was at the center of controversy. when news suddenly came out halfway through the individual competition that she failed a drug test at the 2021 Russian Nationals. She had tested positive for the banned medication, trimetazidine or TMZ, which can help make the heart function better. By that time, she had won gold for the team competition. So naturally, Olympic commentators and viewers were enraged as they accused Kamila of cheating and doping.
Despite the public uproar, the athlete was allowed to continue to compete in the individual competition. However, she did not perform well, stumbling four times during her skate, and failed to medal. Two years later, we’re getting some answers as to how the banned substance may have ended up in her system.
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According to NBC News on Thursday, Kamila’s attorney tried to argue that she accidentally took the trimetazidine because she ate her grandfather’s strawberry dessert. Um, what?! The lawyers claimed her grandfather has taken the drug for a heart condition since 2018, and he may have contaminated a dessert he made for her right before the 2021 national competition in Russia.
How did the contamination happen? They alleged he used the same chopping board to prepare the dish as he did to crush the trimetazidine he took. In documents from the Court of Arbitration for Sport, Kamila claimed she ate the dessert “by bits” throughout the competition — hence “the extremely low quantity of [TMZ] in her” system. And there’s more! She offered up a few other explanations as to how the drug ended up in her system, per the Court of Arbitration for Sport:
“He also takes pills following the doctors’ recommendations and, probably, this pill got into a dessert, which he usually gives to me. Or, I saw a few times accidentally, that he crushed the pills with the knife and dissolves them in a glass, and took them. So I might have drunk from the same glass or there, at home, I might have eaten something from the same chopping board and so on.”
Hmm…
As you can expect, these explanations didn’t help her case at all. Although the panel at the Court of Arbitration for Sport felt Kamila was “an honest, straightforward and credible witness,” there was no “concrete evidence” to back her story other than her grandfather’s statement that he was taking TMZ. The court docs stated:
“There are too many shortcomings in the evidence, and too many unanswered questions, for the panel to decide that her account is more likely than not.”
Ultimately, the claim was rejected. Kamila then received a four-year ban from the Court of Arbitration for Sport last month. Oof. But did the teen really expect the court to exonerate her with very little solid evidence? It would have been very hard to prove this wild story. The decision to ban Kamila led the International Skating Union to move the Russian team down to the bronze medal position since her score was removed from their total. Team USA took the gold instead. However, that situation isn’t over yet! The Russian Olympic Committee already stated they will fight the decision.
What are YOUR thoughts on the latest in this controversy? Are you buying Kamila’s story? Let us know in the comments below.
[Image via NBC Sports/YouTube]
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