Olympics, Sports, Banned Substances, and Opinion
The Olympics should require competing athletes to be adults
The Russian sports system tarnishes the Olympic sheen again
Kamila Valieva of the Russian Olympic Committee made history on the ice rink in Beijing. She became the first woman to complete a quadruple jump in an Olympic competition. Actually, the 15-year-old became the first girl to perform the feat.
Valieva powered the Russian team to gold in the figure skating team event at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. Or so it seemed. Soon after, the International Testing Agency (ITA) said she had tested positive for trimetazidine, a banned substance. As a result, the IOC has suspended the medal awards ceremony.
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) reported that the Russian Anti-Doping Agency collected a sample from Valieva on December 25, 2021. A WADA-accredited laboratory in Stockholm, Sweden, analyzed the sample. On February 7, 2022, the lab reported the trimetazidine finding. The public still does not know who is responsible for the delay or why.
The Russian Olympic Team and Banned Substances
The Russian Olympic program is no stranger to banned performance-enhancing drugs. In…
