The Court of Arbitration for Sport has called for an urgent hearing to decide on Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva’s right to compete in the women’s event at the Beijing Olympics after testing positive to a doping test.

Valieva, a favorite in her event, tested positive on Tuesday for the banned substance trimetazidine at the Russian national championships in St. Petersburg six weeks ago as confirmed by ITA, the International Testing Agency. The test was flagged by a laboratory in Sweden. She is provisionally banned by the Russian anti-doping agency known as RUSADA.

On Wednesday, a RUSADA disciplinary panel upheld her appeal and overturned the skater’s interim ban.

Valieva set world record scores this season and landed the first quad jump by a woman at an Olympics when the Russian Olympic Committee won the team event Monday. The ROC said it will fight to keep that gold medal.

The medal ceremony was then postponed once the positive test was reported. It is not known whether the Russian team will lose that gold medal owing to the doping report.

The rushed hearing at CAS will only consider the question of the provisional ban at these Games, said the ITA, which is prosecuting on behalf of the IOC. The ITA was formed by the IOC in 2018 in the wake of the Russian doping scandal to manage international testing and to design the anti-doping program for the Olympics.

As a 15-year-old, Valieva is a “protected person” according to the World Anti-Doping Code, which includes athletes who have not yet turned 16 at the time of a doping violation. Under these guidelines she could ultimately receive just a simple reprimand.

When a minor is implicated in doping rules violations, the rules state her entourage, such as coaches and team doctors, must be investigated, though it’s not the case for athletes aged over 18.

Valieva will likely be stripped of her Russian national title in December.

A ruling on the Olympic team event likely will take much longer, preventing any medals being awarded in Beijing before the closing ceremony on Feb. 20. RUSADA will first investigate the full merits of the doping case and give a judgment. That verdict would lead to an appeal and could also end up at CAS.

The latest doping case involving a Russian athlete could have broader implications for the country’s sports program.

Russia is competing in the Beijing Olympics as ROC, short for Russian Olympic Committee, without its anthem or flag owing to a fallout from years of doping disputes including steroid use and cover-ups at the 2014 Winter Olympics, which Russia hosted, reports AP.

Another scandal could extend its two-year ban beyond the scheduled December end.
-AP