Posted on 02/11/2022 10:14:23 AM PST by CondoleezzaProtege
BEIJING, Feb 11 (Reuters) - The drug scandal engulfing 15-year-old Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva is inhumane and the adults responsible should be banned forever, skating legend Katarina Witt said.
"What they knowingly did to her, if true, cannot be surpassed in inhumanity and makes my athlete's heart cry infinitely," said Witt, an Olympic champion in 1984 and 1988.
Valieva on Monday won Olympic gold with her Russian team mates, but it was revealed on Friday that she had earlier failed a drug test.
The 15-year-old's gold medal and Games future now hangs in the balance as the International Olympic Committee (IOC) attempts to draw a line in the sand over Russian doping.
Valieva delivered one of the highlights of the Beijing Games so far when she landed the first quadruple jumps by a woman in Olympic competition.
But her dream debut turned to a nightmare when the International Testing Agency said she had tested positive for a banned angina drug in a urine sample collected by Russian authorities at the national championships in St Petersburg on Dec. 25.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Stop sending your children into this f***ed-up mess.
Exactly. These athletes have become nothing more than modern versions of Roman gladiators. They just die more slowly.
The IOC, Russian thugs, and Commie Chinese hosts will figure a way around it all.
I’m sure Kamila Valieva has been abused quite a bit.
Miss Witt has turned into a real good one
I’d like to see our skaters win a gold, but NOT this way
She was a smoke show.
I don't know about that. Three million Uyghurs might disagree.
Hyperbole exampled. Insult to real examples of inhumanity.
Katerina Witt....i remember the judges at the 1984 Olympics ordered her to go back in and change part of her costume..she was showing too much of her butt!!!....little commie vixen...she ended up posing for playboy...
” a banned angina drug”
OK, so what is this and why is it a big deal?
Why don’t doesn’t the IOC test her now? What’s with the retroactive punishment? Half the Olympic athletes have probably taken a forbidden substance in the years prior to the games? How far back can they go?
Not sure I read that correctly, but the drug failure was before the Olympics? It was in Russian National Championships?
That would be legit reason to ignore it.
What happened? Heart medication is a PED?
Katarina hails from East Germany. Anyway the communist/Soviet legacy in sport alive and well today...The same culture that promotes this kind of behavior is the same culture that ultimately spawns mass atrocities. I don’t think that’s hyperbolic. And it needs to be addressed. The Olympics as a whole are incredibly corrupt.
On a less hyperbolic note, it is unfortunate that the demands being placed on young girls in Russia’s system and threatening to permanently shape the whole sport means only girls with pre-pubescent bodies with the stamina of full grown men will be competitive for Gold, and only one Gold at that...because even being age 18 is a physical liability. Already there is a string of retired and/or permanently injured medalists Coach Eteri has overseen. Hence why you see no repeat Russian competitors at the Olympics despite their still young age. They can’t keep up with the quads etc...And some like Evgenia Medvedeva (2018 Silver medalist) are permanently injured.
Here is Valieva and other athletes being propped to pledge their promise to compete well on video call to Putin. *eyeroll*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_Fs7hU-sI8
Yes. A Chinese female gold medal swimmer was punished for using it too. It increases blood flow and oxygen to the heart, expanding your maximum capacity for endurance beyond what is natural..
The cumulative impact of this advantage in just training sessions alone makes it unfair to clean athletes.
Are they taking the medal away from her? Is Witt implying she was drugged without her consent?
No the IOC and Russian officials are not exactly enemies. Everyone is bed-buddies so to speak. There was just SUCH overwhelming evidence of state-sponsored doping from Sochi, that something had to be done at least theatrically. I predict slap on the wrist, but Katarina is blaming the SYSTEM, not Kamila. Katarina herself is from communist East Germany, and all this ridiculousness is just continuation of Soviet legacy in Russia as well.
The suspension was overturned, she’s competing right now. It could change.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNvsDkCAD0I
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