The positive test is not the problem. It's the media spin that turned a child athlete into a worldwide villain because Russia has to be the bad guy in today's news cycle. The Olympics have always been political and this is just taking it to a sick new low. If it were Eileen Gu who tested positive, the news would spin it as an unfortunate accident and find a way to make her into a hero and a victim.
seems this "she shouldnt have gone out" is all based on hindsight after she messed up. she did very well in the first programme after everyone knew she about the doping crap. i think if the whole thing is ambiguous, nothing decided and no medals to be given out then let her compete. its not like she is interacting with other performers. its best for her i think to compete. even though she eventually messed up do you really think a 15 year old girl would want to be pulled out of the olympics? no way. if she was she would hate it and regret it for the rest of her life. she messed up but this is a bad situation all round. stopping her competing was not the better thing to do.
I certainly have to agree with this. The pressure was turned up before the short program and she did great. I'm sure the pressure grew even after that. The athlete was in a bad position no matter what. In sports, we've seen heralded athletes collapse under pressure but then we have seen others who thrive on the pressure. Sometimes one person will do great under pressure one time then not perform well another time. So, I'm not sure removing her would have been the right thing either. And no one wants to be pulled from the Olympics no matter their age.
One thing, though, that was apparent that OP pointed out is that right before the long program she looked terrified. That's a little late to drop out and I don't know if an American coach would ask the athlete to stop within an hour of their final skate in order to protect the athlete. And at 15 I don't know if the athlete would be brave enough to say she wanted to stop. It was just a bad situation all around.
The heart medication Kamila Valieva took causes dizziness, balance issues, and tremors. It’s not performance enhancing for figure skaters.
That may depend on dosage, and in theory it may be possible to not experience those complications but still derive a competitive benefit with microdosing. But maybe not. I'm happy to wait and let CAS sort that out.
lets cut the bs. It's a PED no doubt. She probs knew she was on something because of the way she felt ie more energy. Maybe didn't know it was banned or perhaps was given to her with her daily vitamins.
Trimetazidine is a drug that works by increasing blood flow to the heart and limits rapid spikes in blood pressure. It has been on Wada’s list of prohibited substances since 2014, first as a stimulant but was then reclassified under the “hormone and metabolic modulator” category the following year. It remains on the 2022 banned list as a metabolic modulator. It is illegal for athletes to use in and out of competition because of evidence of performance enhancement. Although it does not have the muscle building or stimulant-like effects of many commonly recognised performance-enhancing drugs, trimetazidine may enhance athletes’ physical efficiency and endurance.
The positive test is not the problem. It's the media spin that turned a child athlete into a worldwide villain because Russia has to be the bad guy in today's news cycle. The Olympics have always been political and this is just taking it to a sick new low. If it were Eileen Gu who tested positive, the news would spin it as an unfortunate accident and find a way to make her into a hero and a victim.
She has now been found with THREE heart meds that affect performance. How ya feeling about your take? Why wouldnt russia be the bad guy again?
Trimetazidine is a drug that works by increasing blood flow to the heart and limits rapid spikes in blood pressure.
It's also a drug that must be taken over a long period of time to work. And in Kamila's case, the detected sample was 500 to 5000 times lower than normal for TMZ users, and she was tested multiple times, and other than December, every other test was negative.
So even if she was intentionally using this drug, she would not have been using it regularly. That scenario just doesn't make sense because she would only benefit from regular repeated use.
She has now been found with THREE heart meds that affect performance.
That one will need to be addressed by Russia and Kamila. But until they do, let's consider the possibility that the other two heart medications really were for performance enhancement. Then ask yourself if Russia, the most sophisticated doper nation in the world, would be so dumb as to cheat in plain sight (Kamila openly declared those heart medications on her doping control list back in December) with the highest profile athlete at the Olympics? That's a bit hard to believe.
The irony is that Weir has stated in the past that he was constantly bullied growing up due to being so extreme in the way he openly portrayed his homosexuality and yet, here he is, bullying a 15-year-old girl on television. As the commentators of the competition, Lipinsky and Weir have an obligation to be completely unbiased in their call of the competition and simply call the action. They cannot show any favoritism nor antipathy toward any competitors. If you ever watch College Gameday, you'll notice that if one of the crew is calling a football game that day, he won't make a prediction of who will win that game. The announcer cannot show any partiality. Weir and Lipinsky have had it in for Kamila Valieva since the day the test result was announced, before any investigation had even started.
Until this Olympics I felt they were great to listen to during a figure skating competition. Now I hope to never hear them call a competition ever again. We have had way too many Olympic medalists, male and female, over the years. Get someone else in the booth, NBC.
I have to agree with this. They toned down their message over the past day but when they called the short program, I cringed at what they were saying. I think someone at NBC had a talk with them in between the two events.
I don't really think you know what irony means. Look, Russia is banned from the Olympics for state sponsored doping programs. Now athletes can compete independently under some Bozo 'ROC' flag that doesn't represent Russia, buuuut Putin attends the Olympics to watch them. There are remnants of this state sponsored doping and they're doing it right out in the open and you defend it. You want to talk about announcers bullying, how about her coaches and support system forcing their will on this athlete? And if you think one doping failure will end an athlete's career, well your are just flat wrong. The brothers who founded LetsSkate.com have been talking about this for years on their message boards!
The positive test is not the problem. It's the media spin that turned a child athlete into a worldwide villain because Russia has to be the bad guy in today's news cycle. The Olympics have always been political and this is just taking it to a sick new low. If it were Eileen Gu who tested positive, the news would spin it as an unfortunate accident and find a way to make her into a hero and a victim.
Holy sh!t you can't be serious? Today's news cycle?........how about Russia is banned from the Olympics for state sponsored doping. How about Putin kills or jails political rivals and dissidents. If you're gay in Russia, you go to jail. Russia is about to waltz into Ukraine for doing nothing, and the world will let him. But you keep thinking that.
Holy sh!t you can't be serious? Today's news cycle?........how about Russia is banned from the Olympics for state sponsored doping. How about Putin kills or jails political rivals and dissidents. If you're gay in Russia, you go to jail. Russia is about to waltz into Ukraine for doing nothing, and the world will let him. But you keep thinking that.
He was not defending Russia. He was just saying it was wrong for me the media to pile all their hatred for Russia on a defenseless 15-year old girl. And he's right. There are lots of problems with the doping theory that have to be answered. The CAS was right to acknowledge those problems and hold off on banishing Kamila from the Olympics.
3: That amount (2 ng/ml) is well below the technical limit of detection, which is 10 ng/ml. [Read that again Why did they even consider this a positive result?]
If a test can only detect a value as low as 10 then you cannot measure a value of 2. #3 probably means the 10 ng/ml is the point of concern. The actual limit of detection is 2 or lower. Maybe newer testing is ahead of the rules which are using an outdated limit of detection.
The worst of the people who attacked this girl is USADA head Travis Tygart. He of all people should be aware of the rules and knows here test results are far below what he lets Americans get a pass on. Yet, he acted like a crazed fan boy and stated he was looking into how the USADA can sue and imprison Russia athletes regardless of the CAS ruling. He should be removed from the USADA by the board for attacking a minor. His behavior is unacceptable.
No they weren't. They rushed this public lynching knowing full well the facts were not yet released and Kamila hadn't had a chance to defend herself. This is the worst moment in the history of sports journalism. Kamila will be rich by the time she finishes suing NBC and all the other media outlets.
You flunk a test you are out. She's 15 on banned heart medicine. This retro crap where you don't have medal ceremonies is terrible. They delayed the test results on purpose. You have to have a deterrent.
BS. The Russians humiliated themselves by doping a 15 year old and then making up the absurd story that she probably got it drinking out of her grandfather's glass.
Every Olympics some athletes are busted, so why would they have buried this one if she weren't Russian?
BS , the CAS report is out . The test will be thrown out . You are the one that is humiliated . 5 times below threshold . People like you get off by cyber bullying without any facts .
This was probably the most grotesque display of abuse in sports in real time I've ever seen. It was sickening. Honestly the only thing I found satisfying about it was Trusova reading the riot act to Eteri when it was all done.
God only knows what those girls have endured. The whole thing was gross. They were half the size of their competitors. I wonder just how small and skeletal they are in real life. They are starved and given hormone blockers. Skaters can have long careers well into their twenties and even early thirties. Russian skaters "retire" by seventeen. It's Karolyis in gymnastics all over again. What they are doing to these girls is despicable.
I think about what I've seen in high school cross-country and track too. There are programs that actively starve girls and so many of them walk away with eating disorders, but we fawn over them because they are nationally ranked every year. There was a program when I was in high school that competed at a track meet I was at. Several of the girls ran sub 11:00 3200s on the same team--(which would have made each of them state champions in the state I competed in, but for them it was good enough for like 6th runner on their team). They looked pre-pubescent--not just skinny--pre-pubescent. The coach looked like a monster lumbering around the infield. I had a horrible feeling about all of it.
Later in college I asked my coaches about why they never recruited from that school, they shook their heads knowingly and explained rumors they had heard. Then I asked how parents could buy into such a horrible system. "Everyone just wants their daughter to run like (the fastest girl on the team at the time). They just get obsessive about it."
Please get your heads out of your a**es. one of the greatest distance runners we've had in recent years was so clearly groomed by his coach since his freshman year of high school. Read between the damn lines! The coach weaseled his way into the athlete's life and his family's life and suddenly he was dictating which doctors the athletes went to and what "testosterone medication" he was on. The family bought into everything because of his name, and because he probably manipulated them. He had a college coached fired, FIRED so that the athlete, who he dictated could not attend another school, attended that one. But we acted like it was Obi Wan and Luke. It was abuse from day one.
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