Banned Olympian out of Winter Games after medals stripped for doping

Friday morning brought the beginning of the figure skating competition at the 2026 Winter Olympics. There was no room for Kamila Valieva, though, after the Russian lost her appeal against a doping ban. Valieva made her Olympic debut in Beijing in 2022, when she was just 15 years old despite having tested positive for a banned substance in an event ahead of the Games. She was allowed to compete and helped Russia win team gold in China but was eventually stripped of her medals.

The situation attracted fury at the time from Adam Rippon, a former figure skater who served as the coach of American skater Mariah Bell in 2022. However, he didn’t put the blame on Valieva himself. “This entire situation is heartbreaking,” Rippon wrote on social media. “This young girl is just 15. She’s a minor. The adults around her have completely failed her. They’ve put her in this awful situation and should be punished.”

The banned substance in question, trimetazidine, showed up after Valieva underwent a drugs test in December 2021 – just weeks before the Beijing games. Reiterating that he blamed the adults involved rather than the teenager herself, Rippon added: “A positive test is a positive test.

“Testing negative now doesn’t negate the fact that there were performance enhancing drugs involved in the process. It’s a f***ing shame. It didn’t need to come to this. SHE IS A CHILD.

“They put her sport performance ahead of her health and well-being. F*** them. They’ve ruined this Olympic experience for HER and for EVERYONE here.”

In January 2024, Valieva was handed a four-year ban following a Court of Arbitration for Sport ruling. The World Anti-Doping Association publicly welcomed the verdict at the time, though figures in Russia complained about a ‘politicised’ decision, and her disqualification also saw Russia demoted to third in the team event and the United States upgraded to gold.

Valieva’s involvement in the 2022 Olympics came against a backdrop of questions over whether a child should receive the same punishment an adult would receive for doping. In its own public statement, WADA indicated it blamed those providing Valieva with the banned substance, rather than the teenager herself.

“The doping of children is unforgivable,” the body said. “Doctors, coaches or other support personnel who are found to have provided performance-enhancing substances to minors should face the full force of the World Anti-Doping Code.”

Despite all this, it wasn’t until October 2025 that Valieva’s absence from the 2026 games was made official. The Russian had a final appeal rejected by Swiss Federal Tribunal judges, with ESPN reporting that she was also instructed to pay thousands of pounds in costs and damages as a result.

“The Swiss Federal Court declared that a significant part of Valieva’s arguments rested on evidence obtained after the contested decision had been issued,” Russian news agency TASS said at the time. “The defense did not provide any supporting documents from the so-called Saugy report (an Associated Press report citing former director of the Lausanne Anti-Doping Laboratory, Martial Saugy), which was presented as irrefutable evidence.”

While Valieva won’t be competing in 2026, a number of other Russian and Belarusian figure skaters have been allowed to take part as ‘individual neutral athletes’ amid the countries’ IOC ban. These are Russian pair Adeliia Petrosian and Petr Gumennik and Belarus’ Viktoriia Safonova.