The Court of Arbitration for Sport on Monday confirmed Russian women's figure skater Kamila Valieva committed a doping violation, handing a four-year ban to the now 17-year-old starting retrospectively in December 2021.
Valieva helped the Russian Olympic Committee win the mixed team event at the Beijing Olympics on Feb. 7, 2022, ahead of the United States in second and Japan in third.
Those medals were never awarded. It was revealed a day after the competition that Valieva, then 15, failed a pre-competition doping test.
On Tuesday, the International Skating Union announced the United States will get gold and Japan silver. With Valieva alone disqualified and not the entire team, the Russian Olympic Committee team will fall to third place.
A substance prohibited under the Russian anti-doping regulations, trimetazidine, was found in a sample collected from Valieva on Dec. 25, 2021, during the Russian national championships in St. Petersburg.
Valieva has been disqualified from competing internationally since the Beijing Olympics, but the consequences for results at those games and any events after the violation "were not within the scope of this arbitration procedure and will have to be examined by the sports organizations concerned," according to the court of arbitration.
She was among the favorites for the Beijing women's singles event but finished fourth, one place behind Japanese bronze medalist Kaori Sakamoto.
Valieva at the time denied taking the substance intentionally, claiming she might have ingested something regularly taken by her grandfather.
In a statement welcoming the decision, the World Anti-Doping Agency said, "the doping of children is unforgivable. Doctors, coaches or other support personnel who are found to have provided performance-enhancing substances to minors should face the full force of the World Anti-Doping Code."
"WADA encourages governments to consider passing legislation -- as some have done already -- making the doping of minors a criminal offense."
Valieva was given the green light by the court of arbitration to compete in the singles event in Beijing as she was declared a protected person by WADA given her age. But the court's media release on Monday said "there is no basis under the rules to treat them any differently from an adult athlete" if a protected person fails to discharge the burden of intentional violation.
In January 2023, the Russian Anti-Doping Agency said it found Valieva violated anti-doping rules but bore no "fault or negligence" for the transgression, disqualifying her solely from the 2021 national championships.
WADA and the ISU filed cases against RUSADA's decision the following month, with WADA calling for the mixed team gold to go to the United States and for Valieva to be suspended for four years.
In a statement released after the court of arbitration ruling, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov described the decision as "obviously politicized."
