IOC: Valieva Doping Test Failure May Be Contamination From Grandfather's Medication

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russian Figure Skater Kamila Valieva's team have said that the banned substance trimetazidine, which caused her doping test failure, could be from a contaminated glass of water that bore traces of her grandfather’s heart medication, a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Denis Oswald said on Tuesday.

"Her argument was this contamination which happened with a product her grandfather was taking", Oswald said after the IOC's press briefing as quoted by the newspaper USA Today.

On Friday, the ITA said that Valieva's probe, which was conducted by a WADA-accredited laboratory in Stockholm on 25 December and reported on 8 February, contained a banned substance called trimetazidine.

On Monday, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) decided to let Valieva further participate in the Beijing Olympics, rejecting appeals from the International Olympic Committee (IOC), International Skating Union (ISU), and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) over her failure to pass a doping test, CAS Director-General Matthieu Reeb said, adding that "no provisional suspension should be imposed on the skater".

This means that the athlete is allowed to participate in the singles skating competition, which starts on Tuesday.

However, the situation with the gold medal she already won by becoming the first woman ever to perform a quadruple jump at the Olympics, remains unclear. In addition, the IOC even announced it won't hold the award ceremony until the case is resolved.