The most important and uncertain Olympic event this year is happening this week. It might just result in a gold medal for Americans and humiliation for Russians.
And nobody can watch it.
A closed-door hearing into a doping case that upended the last Winter Olympics begins Tuesday in Switzerland, with the teenage figure skater at the heart of the matter videoconferencing in from Russia.
The case will inch international sports organizations closer to finally deciding who actually won the Olympic team figure skating event in Beijing in February 2022—though the athlete’s fate is only a tiny part of the ultimate set of considerations that have left medals in limbo for 18 months already.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport is considering whether to void all results obtained by Kamila Valieva on or after Dec. 25, 2021, the date she tested positive for a banned heart drug while winning the Russian national championships. The International Skating Union and World Anti-Doping Agency want her results wiped out—including from the Olympic Games.
The problem is that the one result that matters isn’t a result obtained solely by Valieva at all, but that of the team representing the Russian Olympic Committee. She clinched victory for the ROC in the team event hours before the news came of her positive test.
The revelation prompted the International Olympic Committee and International Skating Union to postpone the team medal ceremony, since there was no way to tell who would ultimately be deemed the rightful recipients. They don’t know even now.
Valieva is arguing that CAS doesn’t have jurisdiction over her case, according to a brief summary of her arguments in a CAS press release that didn’t include further details. Her team says that no doping violation can be proven—and that any violation that can be proven wouldn’t be her fault.
If she prevails, and there are reasons to believe she could, things could get awkward for the international sports organizations lined up against Valieva.
The sports bodies would face the prospect of a spectacle in which they have to hand out gold medals to the Russian Olympic Committee team, despite the fact that Russian Olympic Committee athletes haven’t been allowed to attend international sports events since the outbreak of war in Ukraine. (The very name Russian Olympic Committee is a reminder of Russia’s doping history: The pseudonym was created after sanctions against Russia for a state-sponsored doping scheme.)
And even if Valieva loses her case, the organizations might still have to acknowledge the Russians as winners.
There’s a world in which the ROC gets the team gold medals anyway. There are also scenarios in which they win bronze, finish in fourth place or nowhere at all.
The other complicating factor in Valieva’s complex case is who stands to benefit from a ruling against the Russians: the Americans. Team USA would win the gold medal if the ROC doesn’t.
The individual stakes for Valieva matter less by comparison. At stake is her Russian national title, a potential ban from international events for which she is already ineligible because of the Ukraine-ban on skaters, and possible exclusion from Russian domestic events. Now 17 years old, she has already been overtaken by other Russian skaters, meaning this is more about deciding her past than determining her future.
Back when Valieva was 15, she was the overwhelming favorite to win individual Olympic gold in Beijing. An emergency CAS ruling cleared her to skate in the women’s competition despite the news of the drug test. Under the harshest of international glares, Valieva melted down in the free skate and tumbled off the podium altogether. It was one of the most disturbing nights in the sport’s history. Her fourth-place finish saved the organizers another furor over another postponed medal ceremony.
But they already had the team headache on their hands.
U.S. Figure Skating and the skaters of the 2022 U.S. Olympic team won’t participate in the proceedings this week in Lausanne, Switzerland. They’ve been vocal in their desire to have had their medals wrapped around their necks already. But the organization’s chief executive, Tracy Malek, says they aren’t dwelling on what color those medals should be.
“We ultimately can’t control the final results, so what we’re focusing on right now is having a hearing,” said Malek, sounding exactly like any athlete in a judged sport. “We really think it’s important to take it one step at a time.”
The U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee was slightly bolder, saying: “we certainly hope for the Team USA athletes to be awarded gold medals in the event” but that “our utmost priority lies in ensuring that both these athletes and all other affected clean athletes and programs receive the long-awaited justice they deserve. “
A spokeswoman for the Russian figure skating federation declined to comment.
WADA and the ISU, the bodies seeking to invalidate Valieva’s results at the Olympics, say respectively that they don’t know and can’t comment on what it would mean for the team medals if they get what they want.
The knottiness of the problem comes from the weirdness and relative newness of the Olympic team event, which only started in 2014. Countries with deep skating rosters put up competitors to perform a short program and a free skate in each of the four disciplines, ice dance, men’s singles, pairs—and women’s skating. They earn points based on their finish in each segment relative to the other countries. And there’s never been a problem before.
Valieva skated the short and free programs for the ROC, finishing first in both and securing 10 points for each win. Sports lawyers see four broad options for medals distribution if her results are voided.
1. Give ROC gold anyway. Leave all the team competition points and final results untouched, awarding the ROC team members gold medals. The U.S. would get silver and Japan bronze in this situation.
2. Disqualify ROC. In this scenario, the entire ROC’s team results and medals would be voided. The U.S. would win gold, Japan silver and Canada bronze.
3. Give ROC bronze. Deduct Valieva’s points from the ROC total, while allowing the rest of the team’s points to stand. That would mean a bronze medal for ROC—with the likely exception of Valieva. The U.S. would win the gold and Japan silver.
4. ROC finishes fourth. Void Valieva’s results and redistribute the points from the women’s skating portion of the team competition, essentially acting as if she had not participated in the first place.
The U.S. would still win gold and Japan silver in this scenario. But Canada would leapfrog ROC by one point and knock the Russians into fourth place—and out of any medal ceremony.
Write to Louise Radnofsky at louise.radnofsky@wsj.com