If you want to know fun, crazy sports, adrenaline junkies, and how many ways you can hurtle down the ice, then the Winter Olympics is probably for you. But then again, the ridiculous Russian cloud hanging over Beijing has sucked the life out of everything.
The central figure this time is Kamila Valieva, a 15-year-old ice skater who helped ROC to a gold in the team event. Texts started flying between the various couch potatoes over her elegance, speed, athleticism and sheer grace as she soared to new heights. And then, disaster struck.
A failed drug test from December 25th, which only arose as late as competition day due to a Covid outbreak in a Swedish lab, left Valieva sitting on Zoom for nearly seven hours, watching her lawyer explain how the banned substance, trimetazidine, got into her client’s system. In short, she possibly took a sip from a glass her grandfather had used to swallow his heart medication.
Trimetazidine, for context, is a drug sold for angina and other heart-related conditions. It increases blood flow and limits rapid swings in your blood pressure. It is believed that trimetazidine can improve physical efficiency, more so in endurance sports, although opinions vary on how long-lasting the effect could be. In January 2015, Wada reclassified and downgraded trimetazidine from “stimulant” to “modulator of cardiac metabolism”, prohibiting its use out of competition in addition to the previous prohibition of use in competition.
Tutberidze notoriously won't allow her athletes to have water while skating, has her athletes eating very little to stay as light as possible and trains her athletes up to 12 hours a day
It has since emerged that Valieva’s sample included three substances that are sometimes used to help the heart, according to a document filed in her arbitration hearing on Sunday
We know the win at all cost mentality in sport, and with Russia’s history it’s hardly a surprise people are incredibly suspicious. What’s incredibly weird this time is the focus solely on a 15-year-old girl.
Tension
So, when Kamila lined up during Tuesday’s short programme alongside her coach, Eteri Tutberidze, after CAS ruled her eligible to compete while her appeal process gets underway, there was an odd tension in the air. You never watch sport hoping a literal child will fail, but a win by this specific child will leave a sour taste in many fans’ mouths.
Following the PyeongChang Games in 2018, where Tutberidze’s figure skaters won gold and silver, Putin awarded the coach the country’s Order of Honour in a ceremony at the Kremlin. Tutberidze is notorious for churning out young figure skaters Olympic cycle after Olympic cycle. All three of Tutberidze’s athletes at these Games jump quads, a never before seen feat in ladies’ figure skating which is judged at a higher score, even if there’s a mistake.
Tutberidze notoriously won’t allow her athletes to have water while skating, has her athletes eating very little to stay as light as possible and trains her athletes up to 12 hours a day. Athletes by name, but in reality, these are teenage girls going through bodily changes. Many of her young skaters leave due to back injuries within a year of joining.
The IOC has said there will be no medal ceremony if Valieva medals, but in truth, there should be
Figure skating team champion and the youngest Russian medallist of all time in 2014, Yulia Lipnitskaya subsequently retired three years later after checking herself into residential care to get treated for anorexia. Multiple figure skaters under Tutberidze have left citing an unhealthy relationship with food.
Uncomfortable questions are now being asked by those wondering about the safeguarding of children.
At the very least, Valieva should’ve been removed from an entourage seemingly focused on winning medals at all costs. The scrutiny shouldn’t have been on her, and it should have been on those who continue to put children in to compete with adults while treating them like veteran athletes and making them monitor their weight and body fat. Sure, sport is all about the fine margins and that extra one per cent, but we will never know the actual cost of that extra one per cent.
The IOC has said there will be no medal ceremony if Valieva medals, but in truth, there should be. Putting the ceremony to the side ensures that nobody will be watching and scrutinising how we got here in the first place. That could mean the IOC will not have to face any more uncomfortable questions.
