Russian skater Kamila Valieva blamed strawberry dessert for Olympics doping ban
The Court of Arbitration for Sport rejected Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva's excuse that her grandfather's strawberry dessert caused her positive test and disqualification from the Beijing Winter Olympics.
Could a strawberry dessert be behind Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva’s crumbling career?
Not likely, according to sports’ highest court, which rejected her lawyers’ claims that a positive doping test may have been caused by her grandfather preparing the dish on a chopping board he also used to crush his heart medication.
Valieva, a teenage star whose case overshadowed the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, was last week banned for four years. Her efforts to contest the verdict were revealed in the full 129-page ruling published online Wednesday by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
The alleged strawberry dessert is mentioned 43 times in the documents laying out why the three-member panel rejected her explanation.
In the documents, Valieva’s lawyers contend that a banned substance called trimetazidine (TMZ) could have ended up in her system because of accidental contamination.
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