Russian Figure Skater tests positive for drugs - delays ceremony for team medals

[Dobre]

Of course, China was potentially the toughest environment the Russian pairs could face. There is currently only one country likely to challenge those Russian teams. And Russia knew well how tough it could be. They were off the podium and out of the top 4 at the 2015 Worlds. So Moskvina prepared her teams. And Trankov prepared his. Those athletes were as honed and ready as they could possibly be. They controlled everything they could control. The only thing they could not control was how Sui & Han skated. And Sui & Han, in classic Chinese pairs fashion, pulled out a super hard element and stuck it in their free skate for the Olympic Games. A play that almost never works. But it did this time because Sui & Han actually have that element. They've had it for years. They took it out because the new scoring system didn't reward it as much as the previous one, but S&H didn't need 400 more points to win this Olympics. They needed about two.

 

[MacMadame]

I disagree. Under normal circumstances the homie audience really helps performance. And even in large countries like China and the US, nationalism plays in and the fan doesn’t care that the skater is actually from Boston or Harbin or someplace they don’t live.

Right, because they aren't introduced as Karen from Fremont but Karen from the USA.

 

[Karen-W]

Right, because they aren't introduced as Karen from Fremont but Karen from the USA.

LOL - now I'm imagining the reception the skaters would get at Nationals if they were introduced by their home state instead of their club affiliation.

 

[millyskate]

Calalang’s “advantage” was that no one knew what happened to her until she was cleared. Had RUSADA done its job and prioritized Valieva’s test and/or had Russian media not leaked her identity, Valieva woujd have gotten the same treatment and probably not even gone to Beijing.

Very few athletes are as much gold medal favorites as Valieva was, that also contributed to the furor.

ETA: I see Karen and I had the same points! But @hanca is not Russian.

It was the British media who leaked her identity and the Russians claim their source was the IOC or Wada rather than a Russian one which considering the media is plausible.

I do think that hanca has a point and we can't wish for Calalang to have been allowed to compete while wishing Valieva wasn't allowed to compete. Calalang's case was rare and complicated but just as in judicial cases of people accused who are eventually proven innocent, the system eventually worked for her. There was no way around her suspension really. There was harm to their career as there sadly always is in cases of people falsely accused but the delay to resolution was reasonable. Her anonymity being preserved in the process was no small thing.
I understand Calalang's frustration but her case was treated in a textbook way. Unless we want all people with positive tests to be allowed to compete whilst their cases are pending, which I'm not sure is what people here are arguing for... The point seems to be more that everyone wishes Valieva had been treated like Calalang rather than the opposite. The responsibility of it not happening is split between many institutions and people and unfortunate events such as short-staffed labs.

There are plenty of people who've received the worst of both worlds: their careers ruined and their names dragged in the mud, for far longer. Those are most cases, in fact. Hopefully WADA gets their ducks in a row and clarifies their processes for national anti-doping agencies to replicate once and for all.

 

[UGG]

While there was no pandemic issue, a 13 year old Michelle Kwan did not
publicly break when she was the alternate to Tonya-Nancy; she also would have felt stress and pressure wondering if another shoe (in the form of additional evidence) would drop so Tonya would be pulled. It is somewhat similar, in that the focus was on potential wrongdoing involving another skater. Seriously, while I think all three Russian girls were under great pressure, it was greatest on Kamila ... while I wouldn't have been shocked if she let loose, but I am somewhat surprised that the outburst came from Sasha.

Michelle was not being abused so…how are u even comparing?!?! This isn’t “a pandemic issue” There are ZERO similarities . Nancy was the only victim in 1994. Not going to the Olympics as a teenager is not the same thing as a hostile abusive environment as a teenager.

 

[UGG]

The amount of people posting in this thread who have ZERO idea about trauma response should feel lucky. If you think Trusova was being a “bratty teen” …thank your lucky stars. Because for those of us who understand trauma, it was heartbreaking. This wasn’t Surya Bonaley ripping off a silver medal. OMG

 

[Elka]

That’s quite ridiculous thing to say. The coach may be with Valieva for some ten or 12 hours per day, but there is still 12-14 hours per day left. If parents may not know that their teenage daughter got pregnant (and they live with her) or if a woman doesn’t know that she has a cheating husband (and she lives with him), why would you expect that it is unreasonable that coach may not know what their skaters do the remaining 12-14 hours per day when she is not with them?

You are making assumptions, someone else reads it, adds to it their assumptions…and yet all we KNOW is that Valieva had drug in her and we DO NOT KNOW how it got there. But let’s burn the witch (Tutberidze)!

I said nothing about reasonable, nor am I making any assumptions. I just said it is unprofessional, if the coach did not know.

 

[millyskate]

The amount of people posting in this thread who have ZERO idea about trauma response should feel lucky. If you think Trusova was being a “bratty teen” …thank your lucky stars. Because for those of us who understand trauma, it was heartbreaking. This wasn’t Surya Bonaley ripping off a silver medal. OMG

Surya Bonaly was viewed from the US completely out of context. If anyone was traumatised it was her IMO.

 

[UGG]

Surya Bonaly was viewed from the US completely out of context. If anyone was traumatised it was her IMO.

Oh…during the Olympics as a minor, she realized she was being doped? OK. Because that’s what was happening a few days ago.

Surya’s silver at Worlds was completely well earned. I never saw the reason for her to be angry. Didn’t she win the European Championships like 6 times? What was out of context in regards to her career?

 

[Mayra]

Oh…during the Olympics as a minor, she realized she was being doped? OK. Because that’s what was happening a few days ago.

You don't have to be a minor or be doped to have trauma. This isn't a case of my trauma is worse than yours, so your behavior counts and mine doesn't.

Surya had her own demons. Sasha has Eteri, but the stories about Surya and her domineering mother are not exactly a secret. She was also one of the few, if not the only black skater in a predominantly white sport. If you don't think that affects your psyche, I'm sorry to say it does.

Years later she has come out herself saying her behavior was unsportsmanlike, but looking back it's easy to see that there were a lot of contributing factors to Surya's behavior.

How many people judged Maroney for the same while on the Olympic podium, only to find out years later that she was being abused by the team doctor?

Just goes to show until you walk in someone's shoes, you never know what anyone is going through and what trauma they carry.

 

[millyskate]

Oh…during the Olympics as a minor, she realized she was being doped? OK. Because that’s what was happening a few days ago.

Surya’s silver at Worlds was completely well earned. I never saw the reason for her to be angry. Didn’t she win the European Championships like 6 times? What was out of context in regards to her career?

You're perfectly illustrating the point.

She was part of a system (Gaillaguet) that sold lies to the public about her very identity, making her out to be someone she wasn't. How's that for instrumentalization?
Whilst the US media portrayed her as a skater with poor skating skills, this particular piece of information was not being fed back to her, or if it was it was completely being drowned by racist remarks. The noise was that she was "not artistic enough", "not graceful enough" or too muscular, which in the context of her actually putting her heart and performance ability into beautifully choreographed programs, at a time when most skaters were skating empty circles round the rink with the occasional token armwave, she knew to be plain untrue.

Bonaly was a French icon, featured on the national news incredibly frequently, as in all magazines etc. The whole country was behind her and had fed into the narrative that she was being marked down by judges for racist reasons. This was the truth, but not the whole truth. She was being treated with horrid racism but she also had poor skating skills - it's just that in her eyes and the eyes of the French public, the racism overshadowed all else.
When Yuka Sato won, someone who wasn't a top name, she took it as the judges would literally put anyone in the world on top of the podium, rather than her. She believed this because the French media had fed this to her on a daily basis for years.

It's a shame that her emotions came out after one of her luckluster performances because the true injustice was rather in 1993 when she comprehensively outskated Baiul but got placed 2nd.

Any doubt Surya was treated with racism evaporated on the professional circuit, where she outjumped, outskated and outperformed all her peers for years on end only to "lose" in professional contests to skaters with embarrassingly empty / poor programs. It was painful to watch the overt racism there, and having it all layed out painted a small picture of what she had always endured.

I understand that out of the media context that existed in France back then, US viewers might have thought she was just a skater with poor skating skills and a bad attitude.
This impression had been fed by racist commentary such as this for years:

Surya Bonaly 1999 Keri Lotion Figure Skating Challenge program

2nd with the world team - December 18, 1999 - Kennewick / USA

youtu.be

(this performance of surya's is one of her best ever and of course she was underscored. "very little grace" ).

 

[MacMadame]

we can't wish for Calalang to have been allowed to compete while wishing Valieva wasn't allowed to compete.

We don't though. We wish for them to be treated the same. However that might end up turning out.

 

[kwanfan1818]

unfortunate events such as short-staffed labs.

If RUSADA had been doing its job -- labelling the sample as to be expedited and following up if there were no results for what they expected to be an expedited sample -- the lab staffing would have been irrelevant. If it wasn't cv along with the holidays, it could have been because expedited samples kept pushing it out. But if it had been labeled properly, it would have been completed well before the Olympics started, most likely before Euros, even if that took an escalation, because the lab had enough staff to process expedited tests.

And I also think Calalang has a legitimate beef that Valieva was allowed to compete while her case was being investigated and completed.

 

[Lemonade20]

You're perfectly illustrating the point.

She was part of a system (Gaillaguet) that sold lies to the public about her very identity, making her out to be someone she wasn't. How's that for instrumentalization?
Whilst the US media portrayed her as a skater with poor skating skills, this particular piece of information was not being fed back to her, or if it was it was completely being drowned by racist remarks. The noise was that she was "not artistic enough", "not graceful enough" or too muscular, which in the context of her actually putting her heart and performance ability into beautifully choreographed programs, at a time when most skaters were skating empty circles round the rink with the occasional token armwave, she knew to be plain untrue.

Bonaly was a French icon, featured on the national news incredibly frequently, as in all magazines etc. The whole country was behind her and had fed into the narrative that she was being marked down by judges for racist reasons. This was the truth, but not the whole truth. She was being treated with horrid racism but she also had poor skating skills - it's just that in her eyes and the eyes of the French public, the racism overshadowed all else.
When Yuka Sato won, someone who wasn't a top name, she took it as the judges would literally put anyone in the world on top of the podium, rather than her. She believed this because the French media had fed this to her on a daily basis for years.

It's a shame that her emotions came out after one of her luckluster performances because the true injustice was rather in 1993 when she comprehensively outskated Baiul but got placed 2nd.

Any doubt Surya was treated with racism evaporated on the professional circuit, where she outjumped, outskated and outperformed all her peers for years on end only to "lose" in professional contests to skaters with embarrassingly empty / poor programs. It was painful to watch the overt racism there, and having it all layed out painted a small picture of what she had always endured.

I understand that out of the media context that existed in France back then, US viewers might have thought she was just a skater with poor skating skills and a bad attitude.
This impression had been fed by racist commentary such as this for years:

Surya Bonaly 1999 Keri Lotion Figure Skating Challenge program

2nd with the world team - December 18, 1999 - Kennewick / USA

youtu.be

(this performance of surya's is one of her best ever and of course she was underscored. "very little grace" ).

I absolutely love Surya, and she was so talented. It's sad it took so long to be validated. Imagine Surya if she competed today against the Russians!

 

[hanca]

I said nothing about reasonable, nor am I making any assumptions. I just said it is unprofessional, if the coach did not know.

Yes, because the coach has a crystal ball and in her free time she is looking in her ball to see what all her skaters are doing? (That would be seriously creepy, by the way.)

 

[millyskate]

I absolutely love Surya, and she was so talented. It's sad it took so long to be validated. Imagine Surya if she competed today against the Russians!

She was an IJS skater before her time. What is sad is that if she hadn't been treated with racism and the judges had plainly said "you have wonderful performance ability and but we need you to work on your edges" she most likely would have and would have been greater still. Instead she got lost chasing "artistry" which she already had in spades.

 

[hanca]

To be consumed with soviet spirit does not require to be Russian. That malady touched many people whom Russia occupied during soviet time and they still cannot recover or see clearly.

What a bullshit. I am definitely not consumed by soviet spirit. I don’t particularly like Russians, they occupied my country throughout my childhood. I have seen the damage they caused at various national monuments even after they were gone. After they occupy your country for 20 year, let’s meet and discuss how much you love them. On the other hand, I am not blinded by hatred and cold war propaganda as some of posters here seems to be here. I am not going to assume that a coach should know what her students are doing in their free time. I am not going to assign blame based on people’s assumptions and the fact that someone is Russian. If you don’t like, that’s your problem because I am not going to be changing my opinions to please a few poster on a skating forum.

 

[millyskate]

If RUSADA had been doing its job -- labelling the sample as to be expedited and following up if there were no results for what they expected to be an expedited sample -- the lab staffing would have been irrelevant. If it wasn't cv along with the holidays, it could have been because expedited samples kept pushing it out. But if it had been labeled properly, it would have been completed well before the Olympics started, most likely before Euros, even if that took an escalation, because the lab had enough staff to process expedited tests.

And I also think Calalang has a legitimate beef that Valieva was allowed to compete while her case was being investigated and completed.

The issue is we can't selectively assign blame to the protagonist of the story we like the least. I have no clue how frequently Olympians' samples are not marked "priority". For all we know rusada had "prioritised" the samples of the cross-country ski team instead because that's where the highest risk lay.
But admitting they should have prioritised her sample, there are plenty of people with whom the blame for the events should be shared as well.

 

[hanca]

For someone who likes to hold yourself up as the objective one who doesn't judge until all the evidence is in, you sure are willing to decide what people were really thinking and feeling.

Yes, sure, you are right. I am sure that people who were posting here the caricatures of Valieva shoving drugs in her month with plenty of injections in the background had only loving and caring feelings towards Valieva. (I can’t see in their heads, but I think their actions are clear enough to indicate their feelings, wouldn’t you say?)

 

[Coco]

So I heard about this on Twitter and didn't have the heart to start a new thread.

Apparently the Spanish pairs girl, Laura Barquero tested positive as well? Also on Twitter, someone was saying this could be a metabolite of the same substance that Jessica Calalang tested positive for? Not sure if that is true or not.

Olympics-Spanish figure skater Barquero tests positive for banned substance

Spanish figure skater Laura Barquero tested positive for a prohibited substance during the Beijing Winter Olympics, the International Testing Agency (ITA) said on T…

nationalpost.com

 

[once_upon]

As I said earlier, it's possible that Kamila did the doping on her own or with her family and no Sambo camp involvement, but it's just not a logical reasoning given her high level of achievement during the season and assuming lack of previous negative screens.

Either they were really lucky during the 2021 - 2022 season, or someone - Kamila or family - had advanced pharmacological/endocrine medicine background that has not been revealed.

It 's just not logical. Sorry, it's just not logical.

As for fair or unfair advantages with under 16 being a protected minor and not subject to same consequences as someone over 16 - it is my understanding that everyone competing at the elite levels all sign the same anti-doping contract. Elite level competitors, whether under 16 or over 16, should be held to the same standards and same suspensions while investigations are being done.

Potential harm to Canalog/Johnson's cannot be negated because they weren't competing international at Kamila's 2021- 2922 level . Was Kamila competing at this level in the 2020-2021 season (I don't think so). Who knows if Canalog/Johnson might have had the same type of 2021-2022 season if they had been allowed to compete while investigation was going on.

 

[canbelto]

Yes, sure, you are right. I am sure that people who were posting here the caricatures of Valieva shoving drugs in her month with plenty of injections in the background had only loving and caring feelings towards Valieva. (I can’t see in their heads, but I think their actions are clear enough to indicate their feelings, wouldn’t you say?)

Whoa. Chill out. You need some xanax.

 

[MarieM]

I absolutely love Surya, and she was so talented. It's sad it took so long to be validated. Imagine Surya if she competed today against the Russians!

Well she had better skating skills than she was credited for. And after seeing how she glides nowadays, I wonder what would have happenned had someone fed her the truth about why she was being held back.

 

[AngieNikodinovLove (ANL)]

So I heard about this on Twitter and didn't have the heart to start a new thread.

Apparently the Spanish pairs girl, Laura Barquero tested positive as well? Also on Twitter, someone was saying this could be a metabolite of the same substance that Jessica Calalang tested positive for? Not sure if that is true or not.

Olympics-Spanish figure skater Barquero tests positive for banned substance

Spanish figure skater Laura Barquero tested positive for a prohibited substance during the Beijing Winter Olympics, the International Testing Agency (ITA) said on T…

nationalpost.com

Say what???? Is this recent news? Like as of today? What’s going on? What’s happening? why are there no faxes in my fax machine?

 

[Former Lurve Goddess]

Say what???? Is this recent news? Like as of today? What’s going on? What’s happening? why are there no faxes in my fax machine?

Are you posting from 1987? If so, what song is better? Walk Like An Egyptian or Faith?

 

[AngieNikodinovLove (ANL)]

Are you posting from 1987? If so, what song is better? Walk Like An Egyptian or Faith?

Hmmmmmmm How about eternal flame instead?

 

[Frau Muller]

So I heard about this on Twitter and didn't have the heart to start a new thread.

Apparently the Spanish pairs girl, Laura Barquero tested positive as well? Also on Twitter, someone was saying this could be a metabolite of the same substance that Jessica Calalang tested positive for? Not sure if that is true or not.

Olympics-Spanish figure skater Barquero tests positive for banned substance

Spanish figure skater Laura Barquero tested positive for a prohibited substance during the Beijing Winter Olympics, the International Testing Agency (ITA) said on T…

nationalpost.com

If the Spaniards are eventually disqualified, would James/Radford move up to 11th place? Just curious how these things work. Sad situation, nonetheless.

 

[Sylvia]

Say what???? Is this recent news? Like as of today? What’s going on? What’s happening?

GSD thread is here:

Adverse Analytical Finding for Spain's Laura Barquero after Olympics Pairs SP

International Testing Agency's news release (Feb. 22, 2022) - The ITA asserts an apparent anti-doping rule violation against Spanish athlete Laura Barquero: https://ita.sport/news/beijing-2022-the-ita-asserts-an-apparent-anti-doping-rule-violation-against-spanish-athlete-laura-barquero/ The...

www.fsuniverse.net

 

[screech]

Yes, but do Americans competing in Canada have a hometown advantage? Do Canadians in the U.S.?

If going by fan/audience, most Canadians cheer for anyone BUT the US to win

I remember one year I was flipping through the channels when a world junior hockey tournament taking place in (I think) Calgary. The game I came across was US vs (I think) Norway. Almost the entire Canadian audience was loudly cheering for Norway.

 

[kwanfan1818]

There were plenty of posts here about how the evil American audience sat on its hands for Lobacheva/Averbukh's rock and roll FD in DC in 2003, because we all wanted Bourne/Kraatz to win.