By Fatin Ismail and Lim Chaw Zhen
Award No CAS OG 22/08 – CAS OG 22/09 – CAS OG 22/10
Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS)
Ad Hoc Division – XXIV Olympic Winter Games in Beijing
President: Mr Fabio Iudica, Italy
Arbitrators: Mr Jeffrey G Benz, USA and Dr Vesna Bergant Rakocevic, Slovenia
Kamila Valneva, a 15 year old Russian Figure Skater participated in the Olympic Winter Games 2022 in Beijing (OWG 2022) and was subjected to the doping control test carried out by RUSADA. A banned substance, trimetazidine, was detected in her urine sample by the Sweden Doping Control Laboratory. RUSADA notified the Athlete, WADA, ITA and ISU that a Result Management Process had been initiated due to potential anti-doping rule violation and a provisional suspension was imposed. However, the suspension was lifted the following day by the RUSADA Disciplinary Anti-Doping Committee (DADC). The case was later appealed to the CAS Ad-Hoc Division. The CAS Ad-Hoc Division then maintained the lifting of the Provisional Suspension, which led to the current appeal at the CAS.
At the appeal, the Provisional Suspension was lifted by CAS for the following reasons:
- The Athlete is deemed is a “Protected Person” under the WADC;
- The Russian ADR and the WADC are silent on the provisional suspension imposed on Protected Persons;
- The Panel considered fundamental principles of fairness, proportionality, irreparable harm. If the Athlete were to be banned from competing at the Olympic Games, it would cause her irreparable harm in these circumstances; and
- There was untimely notification of the results of the anti-doping test which was not the fault of Kamila.
Published on 22 April 2022
Photo by Zoë Warmerdam on Unsplash