Canada should be upgraded to bronze after Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva was disqualified from the 2022 Olympics on Monday, almost two years after her doping case caused turmoil at the Beijing Games.
The verdict from the Court of Arbitration for Sport means the Russians are set to be stripped of the gold medal in figure skating’s team event.
The United States finished second and is set to be named Olympic champion instead. Japan originally finished third and Canada placed fourth.
“Skate Canada applauds the decision made by the Court of Arbitration for Sport regarding Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva’s doping violation during the 2022 Winter Olympic Games,” the organization said in a statement Monday.
“This ruling underscores the significance of stringent anti-doping measures and the need for continuous vigilance in protecting the integrity of figure skating and all sports.”
Should the Canadians be elevated to third, it would mean a bronze medal for Roman Sadovsky, Madeline Schizas, Kristen Moore-Towers, Michael Marinaro, Vanessa James, Eric Radford, Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier.
Here’s the decision: A four-year ban for Valieva from Dec 2021 to Dec 2025. Her Olympic results are disqualified, CAS says. A huge win for clean sport and massive loss for the Russian doping system. <a href=”https://t.co/7ArFoisqNv”>pic.twitter.com/7ArFoisqNv</a>
The International Olympic Committee decided not to present any medals for the event in Beijing, where the 15-year-old Valieva was the star performer hours before her positive test for a banned heart medicine was revealed.
CAS said it upheld appeals led by the World Anti-Doping Agency, which asked the court to disqualify Valieva from the Olympics and ban her. A Russian sports tribunal had cleared her of any blame.
The CAS judges banned her for four years, through December 2025 — about seven weeks before the next Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.
The IOC is responsible for reallocating medals and its executive board is next scheduled to meet in March.
Canada finished fourth in the overall standings with 26 medals, one behind Germany. Norway was first with 37 medals and the Russian Olympic Committee was second with 32.
“We now anticipate the day when we can wholeheartedly celebrate these athletes, along with their peers from around the world,” the U.S. Olympic body’s CEO, Sarah Hirshland, said in a statement.
A message left with the Canadian Olympic Committee was not immediately returned.
The likely new Olympic champions are Evan Bates, Karen Chen, Nathan Chen, Madison Chock, Zachary Donohue, Brandon Frazier, Madison Hubbell, Alexa Knierim and Vincent Zhou.
Valieva’s legal team said it is reviewing the CAS decision before deciding whether to appeal to the Swiss supreme court, lawyer Andrea Pinna said in a statement. Pinna, who is based in Paris, led the skater’s defence at the appeal hearings in September and November.
Appeals to the Swiss supreme court can be made on narrow procedural grounds, not the merits of the case.
Valieva’s lawyers had argued she was contaminated by traces of the trimetazidine medication they said her grandfather used.
“Having carefully considered all the evidence put before it,” the court said in a statement, “the CAS panel concluded that Ms. Valieva was not able to establish, on the balance of probabilities and on the basis of the evidence before the Panel, that she had not committed the [doping violation] intentionally.”
Kirsten Moore-Towers and Canada’s Michael Marinaro, seen competing in the 2022 Winter Olympics, are among the Canadian team that placed fourth in the figure skating team event at the Games in Beijing. (Manan Vatsyayana/AFP via Getty Images)
The judges decided that, according to Russian anti-doping rules, Valieva could not benefit from having been a minor at the time of the positive test.
There was “no basis under the rules to treat them any differently from an adult athlete,” said the court, which did not publish its detailed verdict pending a review of confidentiality issues.
The case provoked legal chaos at the Olympics because Valieva’s sample, taken six weeks earlier at the Russian national championships, was not notified by a laboratory in Sweden until hours after she competed in the team event on Feb. 7, 2022.
Intense scrutiny at 2022 Games
Valieva continued to skate at the Olympics after rulings by a Russian tribunal and a separate CAS panel did not hold her responsible as a minor.
The intense scrutiny on Valieva led to an error-filled skate in the individual event, where she had been favoured for gold but dropped to fourth place.
The drama continued when she left the ice. The reaction of her coach, Eteri Tutberidze, was fiercely criticized by skating experts and International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach.
Bach said in Beijing one day later he had been “very, very disturbed” to watch the “tremendous coldness” of Valieva’s entourage.
The case came to CAS to challenge a Russian anti-doping tribunal verdict in late 2022 that Valieva was not at fault. That ruling suggested disqualifying her only from the national championships and letting her keep her Olympic results and gold medal.
WADA asked CAS to impose a four-year ban and to disqualify Valieva from the Olympics. The International Skating Union requested a two-year ban and disqualification.
Valieva, who turns 18 in April, has not competed internationally since the Beijing Olympics.
Four days after the closing ceremony, Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and five days after that, the International Skating Union banned Russian skaters from its events. That ban is still in place.
Since the Olympics, Valieva has skated on an expanded Russian national competition circuit and in various TV events and ice shows. She is no longer the near-unbeatable skater she appeared to be before the Beijing Olympics and has twice been beaten at the Russian nationals by younger skaters from the same training group under Tutberidze.
Although scores at nationals are often inflated, Valieva’s 237.99 points — third at the Russia championships — would have been the best in the world by more than 10 points this season.
When an athlete 16 or younger tests positive for a banned substance, international rules require an investigation of their entourage. Both the Russian anti-doping body and WADA were expected to look into the case but neither has published any findings and there is no indication anyone else is facing anti-doping charges in the case.
GUADALAJARA, Mexico – Canada’s Marina Stakusic fell 6-4, 6-3 to Poland’s Magdalena Frech in the quarterfinals of the Guadalajara Open tennis tournament on Friday.
The 19-year-old from Mississauga, Ont., won 61 per cent of her first-serve points and broke on just one of her six opportunities.
Stakusic had upset top-seeded Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (0) on Thursday night to advance.
In the opening round, Stakusic defeated Slovakia’s Anna Karolína Schmiedlová 6-2, 6-4 on Tuesday.
The fifth-seeded Frech won 62 per cent of her first-serve points and converted on three of her nine break point opportunities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
TORONTO – Alejandro Kirk’s long single with the bases loaded provided the Toronto Blue Jays with a walk-off 4-3 win in the 11th inning of their series opener against the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday.
With the Cardinals outfield in, Kirk drove a shot off the base of the left-field wall to give the Blue Jays (70-78) their fourth win in 11 outings and halt the Cardinals’ (74-73) two-game win streak before 30,380 at Rogers Centre.
Kirk enjoyed a two-hit, two-RBI outing.
Erik Swanson (2-2) pitched a perfect 11th inning for the win, while Cardinals reliever Ryan Fernandez (1-5) took the loss.
Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman enjoyed a seven-inning, 104-pitch outing. He surrendered his two runs on nine hits and two walks and fanned only two Cardinals.
He gave way to reliever Genesis Cabrera, who gave up a one-out homer to Thomas Saggese, his first in 2024, that tied the game in the eighth.
The Cardinals started swiftly with four straight singles to open the game. But they exited the first inning with only two runs on an RBI single to centre from Nolan Arendao and a fielder’s choice from Saggese.
Gausman required 28 pitches to escape the first inning but settled down to allow his teammates to snatch the lead in the fourth.
He also deftly pitched out of threats from the visitors in the fifth, sixth and seventh thanks to some solid defence, including Will Wagner’s diving stop, which led to a double play to end the fifth inning.
George Springer led off with a walk and stole second base. He advanced to third on Nathan Lukes’s single and scored when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. knocked in his 95th run with a double off the left-field wall.
Lukes scored on a sacrifice fly to left field from Spencer Horwitz. Guerrero touched home on Kirk’s two-out single to right.
In the ninth, Guerrero made a critical diving catch on an Arenado grounder to throw out the Cardinals’ infielder, with reliever Tommy Nance covering first. The defensive gem ended the inning with a runner on second base.
St. Louis starter Erick Fedde faced the minimum night batters in the first three innings thanks to a pair of double plays. He lasted five innings, giving up three runs on six hits and a walk with three strikeouts.
ON DECK
Toronto ace Jose Berrios (15-9) will start the second of the three-game series on Saturday. He has a six-game win streak.
The Cardinals will counter with righty Kyle Gibson (8-6).
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
CALGARY – Mired in their first four-game losing skid in 20 years, the Calgary Stampeders are going back to Jake Maier at quarterback on Saturday after he was benched for a game.
It won’t be an easy assignment.
Visiting McMahon Stadium are the Eastern Conference-leading Montreal Alouettes (10-2) who own the CFL’s best record. The Stampeders (4-8) have fallen to last in the Western Conference.
“Six games is plenty of time, but also it is just six games,” said Maier. “We’ve got to be able to get on the right track.”
Calgary is in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time since 2004.
“I do still believe in this team,” said Stampeders’ head coach and general manager Dave Dickenson. “I want to see improvement, though. I want to see guys on a weekly basis elevating their game, and we haven’t been doing that.”
Maier is one of the guys under the microscope. Two weeks ago, the second-year starter threw four interceptions in a 35-20 home loss to the Edmonton Elks.
After his replacement, rookie Logan Bonner, threw five picks in last week’s 37-16 loss to the Elks in Edmonton, the football is back in Maier’s hands.
“Any time you fail or something doesn’t go your way in life, does it stink in the moment? Yeah. But then the days go on and you learn things about yourself and you learn how to prepare a little bit better,” said Maier. “It makes you mentally tougher.”
Dickenson wants to see his quarterback making better decisions with the football.
“Things are going to happen, interceptions will happen, but try to take calculated risks, rather than just putting the ball up there and hoping that we catch it,” said Dickenson.
A former quarterback himself, he knows the importance of that vital position.
“You cannot win without good quarterback play,” Dickenson said. “You’ve got to be able to make some plays — off-schedule plays, move-around plays, plays that break down, plays that aren’t designed perfectly, but somehow you found the right guy, and then those big throws where you’re taking that hit.”
But it’s going to take a team effort, and that includes the club’s receiving corp.
“We always have to band together because we need everything to go right for our receivers to get the ball,” said Nik Lewis, the Stampeders’ receivers coach. “The running back has to pick up the blitz, the o-line has to block, the quarterback has to make the right reads, and then give us a catchable ball.”
Lewis brings a unique perspective to this season’s frustrations as he was a 22-year-old rookie in Calgary in 2004 when the Stamps went 4-14 under coach Matt Dunigan. They turned it around the next season and haven’t missed the playoffs since.”
“Thinking back and just looking at it, there’s just got to be an ultimate belief that you can get it done. Look at Montreal, they were 6-7 last year and they’ve gone 18-2 since then,” said Lewis.
Montreal is also looking to rebound from a 37-23 loss to the B.C. Lions last week. But for head coach Jason Maas, he says his team’s mindset doesn’t change, regardless of what happened the previous week.
“Last year when we went through a four-game losing streak, you couldn’t tell if we were on a four-game winning streak or a four-game losing streak by the way the guys were in the building, the way we prepared, the type of work ethic we have,” said Maas. “All our standards are set, so that’s all we focus on.”
While they may have already clinched a playoff spot, Alouettes’ quarterback Cody Fajardo says this closing stretch remains critical because they want to finish the season strong, just like last year when they won their final five regular-season games before ultimately winning the Grey Cup.
“It doesn’t matter about what you do at the beginning of the year,” said Fajardo. “All that matters is how you end the year and how well you’re playing going into the playoffs so that’s what these games are about.”
The Alouettes’ are kicking off a three-game road stretch, one Fajardo looks forward to.
“You understand what kind of team you have when you play on the road because it’s us versus the world mentality and you can feel everybody against you,” said Fajardo. “Plus, I always tend to find more joy in silencing thousands of people than bringing thousands of people to their feet.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
