#Canada; #OlympicBronze; #Russia; IOC
Geneva/CMEDIA: Canada does not get bronze medals from the 2022 Beijing Olympics, despite the disqualification of Russia’s Kamila Valieva in a doping case, the sport’s governing body reported Tuesday.
While the United States becomes the new Olympic champion in the team event, Japan gets upgraded to silver from bronze, and the demoted Russians get third place by a single point ahead of fourth-placed Canada in spite star skater Valieva being stripped of points earned on the ice.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport on Monday had disqualified Valieva from all of her events since December 2021 and banned for four years in a doping case that could be resolved in almost two years. She was 15 during the Beijing Olympics. She turns 18 in April.
An amended points table from the Beijing competition was published by the International Skating Union that took Valieva’s maximum 10 points from each of her two events but did not add an extra point to the other teams below her.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) was the final decision on awarding medals and the ISU said the IOC was consulted before completing its duty as the event organizer to amend the result.
“The ISU is in close contact with the International Olympic Committee and the relevant ISU member federations in regard to the implementation of this decision,” the governing body was reported saying.
Due to other teams’ not having their points increased to account for Valieva being disqualified, the decision by the IOC could reportedly be open to legal challenge by Canada.
The Canadian skate federation likely can challenge the ISU decision and the case could be extended for about another year by a Canadian appeal to the court in Lausanne, Switzerland.
The IOC executive board’s next scheduled meeting is reported to take place on from March 19-21 in Lausanne at the same time Canada is hosting the figure skating world championships in Montreal.
The skating medal issue could also be addressed by South Korea‘s Olympic leadership for the Youth Winter Games
