Canadian skaters demand bronze medals in Olympic dispute

Nearly a month after international figure skating’s governing body revised the results of a major competition at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, depriving Russia of the gold medal and handing the U.S. team a long-delayed victory, a deal broke Monday new fight over the outcome. .

Eight members of the Canadian team who participated in the team competition in Beijing did so has filed a case with the Court of Arbitration for Sport demanding that they be awarded bronze medals in the team event. The court announced the complaint, but did not reveal any details.

The Canadians, whose case was joined by their country’s speed skating federation and national Olympic committee, are expected to argue that figure skating’s world governing body erred when it revised the results of the competition in January after a Russian skater who had competed, teenage prodigy Kamila Valieva, was given a four-year ban for doping.

The profession, and three others filed by Russian interests over the results, has ensured that a controversy that has raged for almost two years will now be expanded – complicating the awarding of the medals to all skaters until it is finally resolved.

The Canadians and others have claimed that when the skating body, the International Skating Union, removed the points won by Ms Valieva from the results, it failed to increase the point totals of the athletes who competed against her on the two occasions she went to the match. ice.

If that had happened, the Canadian team would have been upgraded to third place in the competition, knocking Russia off the podium altogether.

In to announce After planning to appeal earlier this month, the Canadian Skating Federation took pains to note that it had no objection to the decision to elevate the United States to the gold medal and Japan from bronze to silver. The federation, Skate Canada, said its sole motivation was to ensure “that rules and regulations are consistently and fairly enforced.”

It is not the only team to appeal the ISU’s decision. The Lausanne-based Court of Arbitration for Sport, which serves as the final arbiter of disputes in global sport, said in a statement on Monday that in addition to the Canadian appeal, it had also received three cases backed by Russian interests seeking to overturn the results to undo. , and award Russia the team gold.

The decision to allow Russia to earn a medal at all, despite fielding an athlete who was later convicted of doping, raised even more questions about Russian influence over top sports organizations. It also highlighted global sport’s inability to enforce doping rules and punish athletes and countries in a timely manner. On Monday, the court offered no timetable for a resolution of the four new cases, signaling many more months of uncertainty.

The Valieva case turned the Beijing Games on its head, leading to overnight emergency hearings on her eligibility and an awkward compromise after the end of the team competition: Unsure who had won, the International Olympic Committee opted to sit out during the event not to award medals.

Instead, the podium ceremony was adjusted, with the teams from Russia, the United States and Japan presented with flowers and hugs instead of gold, silver and bronze.

The controversy raised questions not only about cheating and honesty, but also about how an athlete who was only 15 at the time and considered a minor could be involved in a doping scheme.

Under intense media scrutiny, Ms Valieva’s performance slumped after news of her failed test was revealed months earlier during the Games. In their arguments in court, Russian officials later claimed that the banned supplement in her system, a drug used to treat heart disease, was ingested after her grandfather prepared a strawberry dessert on the same cutting board he had used to crush his medicine.

That excuse was not accepted. And the latest round of legal actions means the prospect of an eventual medal ceremony is as remote as ever. Although the IOC said last month it was eager to present the medals to the athletes who won them, it had not yet indicated when the medal ceremony would take place for any of the teams involved.