The 15-year-old star of Russia’s figure skating team who powered it to a win in the team figure skating competition tested positive for a banned substance at a national competition leading up to the Games, throwing the team’s gold medal into question.
The skater, Kamila Valieva, was found to have used trimetazidine, a heart medication not normally allowed in competition, according to a statement Friday from the International Testing Agency.
It was unclear if Russia’s team, which won the event Monday, beating the United States in second and Japan third, would be awarded the gold medal. But the case cast fresh suspicion on the presence of the country’s athletes at the Games.
Russian athletes have been allowed to participate in global sporting events like the Olympics under special permission, and only if their sports federations affirm they are “clean” of banned substances. The requirement put in place after revetations that Russia conducted a state-orchestrated cheating scheme at the 2014 Sochi Games.
The Russians in Beijing cannot participate under their flag or name, after a reduction of the country’s original four-year ban from sports left only symbolic penalties in place. Instead, the athletes are called R.O.C., for Russian Olympic Committee.
The decision on awarding the medal, the testing agency said, can be made by the International Skating Union, the sport’s governing body, “only after a final decision on the full merits of the case has been taken.”
Mark Adams, a spokesman for the International Olympic Committee, said at a news conference on Friday in Beijing that he did not know when the matter would be resolved or when the medals for the event would be awarded.
“We have to wait for the process to run its course,” he said. “We hope the whole issue can be expedited in the interest of every athlete.”
Adams defended the way the I.O.C. has handled the question of Russian participation at the Games.
“We took every action we thought was important, always remembering that the emphasis was on the individuals, that we don’t have mass justice against groups of people,” he said. “We take out individuals who are proven guilty.”
The award ceremony for the event was supposed to take place Tuesday night in Beijing. But just as the teams prepared to head to a plaza for the event, they were told to turn back.
Russia won the team event behind a breakout performance by Valieva.
Yet according to the testing agency, Valieva, who burst into the senior level of figure skating this fall and is already considered one of the greatest skaters ever, had tested positive for the substance after submitting a sample at the Russian national figuring skating championships on Dec. 25.
That doping sample was then sent to the World Anti-Doping Agency’s accredited laboratory in Stockholm, where it appeared to sit for more than six weeks before results were reported to the Russian antidoping agency and W.A.D.A.
For reasons that are not clear, the Stockholm lab did not report that Valieva’s sample showed traces of a banned substance until Tuesday, one day after Valieva led the Russian team to victory in the team event. In the free skate, she landed two quadruple jumps, becoming the first woman to land that four rotation jump in the Olympics.
The Russian antidoping agency had provisionally suspended her after receiving the positive test result, but lifted that suspension one day later after Valieva appealed. She is now still scheduled to compete in the women’s singles skating event that starts on Tuesday. The Russian women are expected to sweep the event.
The I.O.C. is appealing the decision to lift the provisional suspension, before the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the I.T.A. said.
The Russian Olympic Committee in a statement defended Valieva and her participation in the Games. The committee said she passed doping tests before and after Dec. 25 and at the Games, and that the positive test in question should not apply to her status in Beijing.
Antidoping officials not connected to the case question why Valieva’s sample lingered in the Stockholm lab for so long, with the Olympics approaching. Such samples are often expedited given the high stakes and the resolve to ensure that only clean athletes are in events.
“This was a complete catastrophic failure to athletes and public confidence,” said Travis T. Tygart, the chief executive of the United States Anti-Doping Agency.
The team event is a mixed-gender competition that made its debut at the 2014 Games in Sochi, Russia. A Russian team won that year and then claimed the silver medal behind Canada four years later in Pyeongchang, South Korea. The United States won the bronze medal in both previous editions.
This year, the American team, led by the three-time world champion Nathan Chen, finished second behind the Russian team in the best finish in the event for the U.S.
The team event is contested over several days. In it, each country is represented by men’s and women’s singles skaters, a pairs team and a set of ice dancers. The athletes compete in several rounds of performances, and the scores are combined to crown a winner.
Score
|
||
|---|---|---|
 Russian Olympic Committee |
74 | |
 United States |
65 | |
 Japan |
63 | |
| 4 |
 Canada |
53 |
| 5 |
 China |
50 |
The event can showcase the breadth of a team’s skating talent, but team events also come with risks. Germany and Ukraine failed to score points in portions of this year’s competition after losing athletes to positive coronavirus tests, ending their slim medal hopes.
The disqualification of any athlete from a medal-winning team — a regular occurrence in other Olympic sports — means the loss of that athlete’s points. That could alter the final standings.
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