Doping? No, Grandpa dropped drugs in the cake, defends Russian figure skater Valiljela

It was a bit of a sensation when 15-year-old Kamila Valiljela dominated figure skating at the Beijing Olympics and led Russia to a gold medal. But a doping case has cast a dark light on everything, adding to the bizarreness once again.

Yet Valiljela was already going to China with one blemish from her past. She failed a doping control at the Russian Championships in December 2021 when she tested positive for the substance trimetazidine.

But that meant nothing to her. Valiljela went to the Beijing Olympics anyway, where she was supposed to lead the Russian team. And at 15, she was performing superhuman feats. She helped the Russian team to first place and made history with several achievements.

She became the first European woman to jump the triple axel, the first woman to jump the quadruple jump and triple axel in one program. Or the first woman to jump two different quadruple jumps in one program.

The figure skating world was at her feet, but not for long. In the middle of the Olympics, on February 8, the news of a positive doping test came in. And for that reason the medal ceremony didn’t even take place.

Immediately, of course, the trial began and Valiljela’s defence was built on a rather bizarre sequence of events. That is, that her grandfather had dropped a drug in a strawberry cake.

More specifically, the lawyers of the young athlete built their defence on the fact that when Valiljela’s grandfather was preparing a cake for his granddaughter before the Olympics, the drug trimetazidine fell into it. Or that its residue was left crushed on the cutting board where he subsequently prepared the cake.

After that, the version changed and Valiljela was only supposed to drink from the glass from which her grandfather drank his medicine. But the CAS panel of judges did not believe either version, saying there were too many flaws in the whole case. And too many unanswered questions.

Last week, the sports arbitration court in Lausanne decided to hand down a four-year sentence to Valiljela while stripping Russia of its gold in the team competition. And thus relegating the U.S. to first place.

Source: iDnes, BBC