Canada deserves 2022 bronze after Russian figure skater's disqualification, says former Olympian
Canada stays 4th in 2022 Olympic team figure skating despite Kamila Valieva's doping ban
Canadian figure skaters have once again been robbed of their third-place medals from the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, says former Olympian Meagan Duhamel.
Canada came fourth in team figure skating at the Games, following Japan with bronze, the U.S. with silver and Russia with gold.
But those standings changed this week after the Court for Arbitration for Sport (CAS) disqualified Russian star skater Kamila Valieva and stripped her of her points because she tested positive for a banned heart medication. She was also handed a four-year competition ban, effective from December 2021.
On the heels of Monday's long-awaited court ruling, the International Skating Union (ISU), figure skating's global governing body, recalculated the points from Beijing. On Tuesday, it removed Valieva's 20 points, which she earned by scoring the maximum 10 in two events. But didn't award any extra points to the skaters who finished behind her.
In the end, Russia's tally dropped 74 to 54, while Canada's remained at 53. The U.S. team was upgraded to gold, Japan moved up to silver, and Russia slipped to bronze — leaving Canada in fourth place, where it started.
In a statement, Skate Canada, the sport's national governing body, accused the ISU of not following Rule 353 from its own rule book, which states that "competitors having finished the competition and who initially placed lower than the disqualified competitor will move up accordingly in their placement."
Duhamel is a retired pair skater with three Olympic medals. She won those medals with her partner, Eric Radford, who was also part of the 2022 team.
Here is part of her conversation with As It Happens host Nil Köksal.
How are you feeling about the fact Canada won't get bronze here?
I'm extremely discouraged, but I'm not surprised at the decision.
Unfortunately, in this decision that the ISU made today, they've actually gone against their own rules. The ISU states that if a skater is disqualified, all the other skaters will be bumped up in the results.
What they've chosen to do in this team event is disqualify Kamila Valieva, but they did not bump up the second-place skater to first [or the] third-place skater to second.
If they had done that, Canadian skater Maddie Schizas would have gained two more points in the team event, and that would have put Canada in the bronze medal position ahead of Russia.
Why do you think they didn't do that?
I think that it's possible that the ISU is trying to keep Russia in their good books, because they are such a powerful sporting federation. That's one of my theories.
And I'm not too sure if Canada and Japan and the U.S. — the countries that were blocked out of getting medals at the Olympics in Beijing — if their voices have been heard.
Skate Canada has the chance to appeal this. But Russia has also chosen to appeal. They still think that they deserve the gold. They are not happy to be put down to bronze, even if they didn't even deserve the bronze.
Have you spoken to your former pairs partner, Eric Radford? He was on the team vying for bronze. Do you know how he's doing with all of this?
I haven't spoken to him about this situation.
But, from what I've understood, Skate Canada was very surprised today by this decision. They did not expect that they were going to manoeuvre the results like this. And, hopefully, an appeal is coming.
But you know what? All an appeal does is push a final answer further and further away. The skaters have already lost their moment at the Olympics. They've already lost, you know, the emotions that can come with standing on the Olympic podium. They've already lost potential sponsorships, potential jobs that they could have got had they left the Olympics with their medal.
What does the sport lose?
It loses so much credibility when the powers that be at the ISU decide to play with their own rules.
What does it say to young figure skaters out there?
It's very frustrating because it shows young athletes that they're not in control of their own fate. And we're already not really in control of our own fate in figure skating because we're judged, right? It just throws another curve ball down that road.
In terms of of Ms. Valieva herself, she was 15 years old [when she tested positive]. Do you put the blame on the athlete, or the team, the coaches or [all of them] in a situation like this?
Definitely on everybody involved.
You have a young skater that, you know, is clearly influenced by those around her. But this young skater has been doing doping control [testing] since 13 years old, since they entered the junior international scene. So doping control was not something new. You're explained every time you go to doping control how it works [and] that you're responsible for everything that goes into your body. So this is something that she would have been told.
But then again, she's been guided by a doctor that the skating federation and her coach have hired. And this doctor, [Filipp] Shvetsky, was already part of a doping scandal within the Russian rowing team. He left rowing at that point and came to figure skating. So this is the second doping scandal he's been part of. Yet, he seems to be walking out of the scot-free. And she's taking all the blame, and that's wrong.
The four-year ban for her, how do you feel about that decision?
The four-year ban will end with time for her to go to the next Winter Olympics, if Russia is allowed to compete at the next Winter Olympics. So I don't think that was enough.
Because of the case taking so long, I think the ban should start now, because she's been competing for the last few years. She hasn't stopped. She's been competing in Russia and she's allowed to compete at the Olympics.
On the issue of the medal placement, it is team points, as you were mentioning. So is it fair to punish the rest of the Russian team for this one skater?
No … but there was a British [4x100m relay] team [at the 2020 Tokyo Games.] One person was disqualified. The whole team was disqualified and lost their medal.
There was a case many years ago of a Chinese gymnastics team [at the 2000 Sydney Games]. One of the members was known to have lied about their age, so they were disqualified, so all members of that team event were disqualified.
So it's just like an unprecedented move to only take away one athlete when all other sports remove the team.
With files from The Associated Press. Interview produced by Sarah Jackson. Q&A edited for length and clarity
