BEIJING You would think it would be almost comforting if a Russian tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs at the Beijing Olympics. This is not an endorsement, even if it meant a likely medal for Canada, which it might. But in a Games wrapped in the trappings of difficult-to-escape pandemic sadness, it would be a reminder that despite all the ways these Olympics have been deadened by COVID and more, some things remain the same.
Except, they aren’t. Russia won gold in team figure skating Tuesday, but medals were not awarded Tuesday night. insidethegames.biz, an Olympic-focused publication, reported the delay was rooted in an issue between Russian athletes and international anti-doping authorities. USA Today reported it was a positive test. inside the games broke it open: it was a positive test for 15-year-old figure skating phenom Kamila Valieva from before the Games.
Which would fit the facts of what has been disclosed, and what has not. The WADA Code states an under-18 athlete does not need to be identified. After that, the case is not entirely clear: when was the test, what was the specific result, and is the IOC-controlled Court of Arbitration for Sport limbering up to split the medal in half?
It would be a bombshell, if not quite a shock. Russia is competing as the Russian Olympic Committee for the second straight Winter Games, after competing as the Olympic Athletes from Russia in Pyeongchang, because Russia ran a sprawling international doping scam for several years before being caught and were let off with a change of clothes. Russia? Doping? At the Olympics? Why next you’ll be telling me that the Norwegians enjoy cross-country skiing, or wear pants.
But a 15-year-old? Even a brilliant 15-year-old skater who landed the first women’s quad in Olympic history already? Could her age de ella be used to question whether she took a PED intentionally? Who was around her who could also be held responsible? The WADA Code specifies a provision for no fault or negligence, and the possibility of a reduction or elimination of sanctions.
But Russia was also found to have doped at the Paralympics, at world championships, at the World University Games. (Russia won 152 of the 351 golds at the 2013 World University Games in Kazan, Russia.) A nation that has doped younger athletes before might not stop at 18.
Which is to say, a legal issue between a Russian athlete and anti-doping authorities may be exactly what we are seeing. Which, frankly, could describe much of the past eight years.
And while this would only half be a surprise, it is a helpful reminder that all of the moral complications of an Olympics in China are really overshadowing the moral complications of another Olympics with Russia in the Games. (As always, it remains to be seen what level of moral complications will be in play at Los Angeles 2028.)
Remember, Russia has not missed an Olympics since running the most extensive, cynical, and organized state-sponsored doping scheme ever detected, and not just at their own Olympics. They passed vials of urine through the wall in Sochi. Whistleblowers feared fatal retaliation. There were some relevant deaths, which may have even been coincidental.
And still the IOC worked so hard, for so many years, to keep Russia from missing a Games. I feel terrible for Russian athletes; it would take a naif to think Russia is the only doping nation on earth. And evidence from Russia has shown their athletes have had to follow the program. It’s hard to imagine this is all being unlucky enough to get caught.
But they did get caught. Canadian IOC member and World Anti-Doping Agency founding president Dick Pound produced the Russian reports along with Western University professor Richard McLaren, and Pound was a lion on the issue. At the IOC session to start the 2018 Games he said, among other things, “More attention has been paid to get the Russian athletes into the Pyeongchang Games than in dealing with Russian conduct.” He was correct and righteous, especially in the context of the IOC.
Pound has been disappointingly silent since, and has become a strangely naive-sounding defender of the Beijing Games. Then-IOC member and anti-doping advocate Adam Pengilly was defenestrated in Rio. Canadian cross-country ski legend and former WADA athlete committee chair Beckie Scott was a huge figure in the anti-doping fight: it cost her, and she was driven out her.
And Russia remains, wearing different clothes, pushing the borders. The Russians were led into the opening ceremony by a woman named Olga Fatkulina, a speedskater who won silver in Sochi but hadn’t competed in Pyeongchang because she had been banned for doping, along with dozens of other Russian athletes. The ban was eventually overturned by CAS in eyebrow-raising fashion. And the IOC gave Russia its flag back right after Pyeongchang, before more doping violations got in the way.
Still, ROC wore opening ceremony uniforms with the Russian flag on the sleeve, in the third straight Games where the Russian flag is supposed to be banned. As rugby team captain Alena Tiron told the Russian state news agency three years ago, “It’s insulting… but as they say, if the flag is not allowed, we ourselves will be the flag. We know which country we stand for.”
It’s a lot. Russia already has a women’s hockey team in major COVID outbreak after playing Canada and the Finns, who masked up. And all this occurs as Russia threatens a repeat of the post-Sochi invasion of Ukraine. As one Ukrainian journalist here said to me, the Olympics are a really good place to run away from the scary stuff at home.
Some things follow you here. The question of a possible Canadian medal may arise. But for now, this is such a depressing possibility. One day after the IOC paraded captive tennis star Peng Shuai at the coming-out party for 18-year-old star Eileen Gu, a peerless 15-year-old caught in the anti-doping net would be a dark moment, even in the context of Olympic exceptionalism on that front. Whatever you want to call them, whatever they decide to wear, Russia is at these Olympics. Now you know.
