Odermatt wins Olympic giant slalom

BEIJING — Sport’s top court convened on Sunday to decide if 15-year-old Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva can compete again at the Beijing Olympics after she failed a drugs test, while Switzerland’s Marco Odermatt won giant slalom gold in the snow and fog.

The buildup to the Games in the Chinese capital was dogged by concerns about COVID and human rights and have now passed the halfway point with yet more controversy surrounding them.

This time it involves skating sensation Valieva, whose Games hang in the balance after it emerged that she tested positive before the Olympics for a banned substance.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) was to hold a video hearing before delivering its verdict on Monday afternoon, just a day before Valieva is scheduled to compete in the women’s singles competition, one of the most closely watched events at the Olympics.

Valieva was a strong favourite for gold, but her Olympics and her fledgling career are now in jeopardy.

Christophe Dubi, Olympic Games executive director, said it was important to remember the “human side of this story... to think about a person of 15 in this situation”.

“We need to treat this situation extremely carefully,” said Dubi.

Valieva, who became the first woman ever to land a quadruple jump in Olympic competition as Russia won team gold on Monday, tested positive for trimetazidine after competing at an event in Saint Petersburg on December 25.

However, the International Testing Agency says the World Anti-Doping Agency-accredited laboratory in Stockholm only reported that Valieva had returned a positive case on February 8 — the day after she won team gold in Beijing.

The Russian team and their government have raised questions about why it took six weeks for the result to come out.

Valieva again practised on Sunday, watched by her coach Eteri Tutberidze, who has herself come under scrutiny in the wake of the affair.

The teenager declined to comment to reporters afterwards but appeared in good spirits, laughing and joking with members of the Russian coaching team.

The case is just the latest doping scandal surrounding Russian athletes at recent Olympic Games, which led to a two-year ban.

Russian competitors are taking part in Beijing under the flag of the Russian Olympic Committee, providing they have been able to prove they were not tainted by a massive state-sponsored doping programme focused on the 2014 Sochi Olympics.

The Russian flag cannot be displayed at the Games and the national anthem cannot be played.

Odermatt wins in the snow

Heavy snow fell on Sunday but Odermatt lived up to expectations by holding his nerve to win the men’s giant slalom.

Odermatt, who finished a disappointing seventh in the downhill and skied out of the super-G, clocked the best combined time over the two legs down the “Ice River” course, where snow and fog made conditions tricky and visibility poor.

“It was a hard day with the conditions, with such a long wait between the two runs,” said Odermatt, who estimated it was five hours between his first and second runs.

These Olympics are being held on mostly manmade snow because Beijing is one of the driest parts of China.

However, snow tumbled steadily throughout the day in the capital and in the mountains outside Beijing where skiing, snowboarding and sliding events are taking place. The snow was forecast to ease up by Monday morning.

The weather forced off several events including qualification in the women’s freestyle skiing slopestyle, in which Californian-born Chinese sensation Eileen Gu was going for a second gold medal.

Norway’s Marte Olsbu Roeiseland won the women’s 10km pursuit in biathlon and in cross-country skiing the Russians took gold in the men’s 4x10km relay.

There was also an emotional gold for the Dutch women in the 3000m short track speed skating.

They dedicated it to former team-mate Lara van Ruijven, who died suddenly in 2020 aged 27.

“She is always in our minds and we know she’s here with us,” said Yara van Kerkhof.

These Games are over for Slovakia’s newly crowned slalom champion Petra Vlhova, who has picked up an injury.