Nearly a month after the international figure skating governing body reviewed the results of a marquee competition at the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games, stripping Russia of the gold medal and handing Team USA a long-overdue victory, a new fight over the outcome broke out on Monday.
Eight members of the Canadian team that competed in the team event in Beijing filed a lawsuit at the Court of Arbitration for Sport demanding that they be awarded bronze medals in the team event. The court announced the filing but did not disclose details.
The Canadians, whose case was joined by their country’s skating federation and the 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 received part, the teenage prodigy Kamila Valieva has been banned for four years for doping.
The appeal, and three others filed by Russian interests over the results, ensured that a dispute that had already raged for nearly two years will now be prolonged – complicating the awarding of medals to any skater until it is finally resolved.
The Canadians and others claimed that when skating’s governing body, the International Skating Union, cleared the points earned by Ms Valieva from the results, it failed to upgrade the points totals of the athletes who competed against her on the two occasions she took to the ice.
Had he done so, Team Canada would have moved up to third place in the competition, knocking Russia off the podium entirely.
In announcing its intention to appeal earlier this month, skating Canada was at pains to note that it had no objection to the decision to elevate the United States to the gold medal and take Japan to silver from bronze. The federation, Skate Canada, said its only motivation was to ensure “that the rules and regulations are followed consistently and fairly.”
They are not the only team to appeal the ISU decision. The Lausanne-based Court of Arbitration for Sport, which acts as the final arbiter of disputes in world 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, and to give Russia the team gold.
The decision to allow Russia to win any medal when it had used an athlete later convicted of doping raised even more questions about Russia’s influence over top sports bodies. He also highlighted the failure of world sport to enforce doping rules and punish athletes and countries in a timely manner. On Monday, the court offered no timetable for resolving the four new cases, signaling many more months of uncertainty.
The Valieva case overturned the Beijing Games, leading to emergency late-night hearings about her eligibility and an awkward compromise after the team competition ended: Unsure of who won, the International Olympic Committee chose not to award any medals at the event.
Instead, the podium ceremony was modified, with the teams from Russia, the United States and Japan given flowers and plush toys instead of gold, silver and bronze.
The controversy raises questions not only about cheating and fairness, but also about how an athlete who was just 15 at the time and considered a minor, could have entered into a doping scheme.
Under the intense media glare, Ms. Valieva’s performance slipped after news of her failed test broke months ago during the Games. In court filings, Russian officials later claimed that the banned supplement in her system, a drug used to treat heart disease, had been consumed after her grandfather prepared a strawberry dessert on the same cutting board he had used to crush his drugs .
This excuse was not accepted. And the latest spate of legal actions makes the prospect of a final medal ceremony as remote as ever. While the IOC said last month it was willing to hand over the medals to the athletes who had won them, it had not yet indicated when the medal ceremony would take place for any of the teams involved.
