Doping Stuff™, Pt.2 (follow-up to this post)
Now that it’s official that Kamila was tested positive for trimetazidine, and now that I’ve had more time to think this whole situation over, see opinions and read up on things, I have a few more things to say.
- Eteri (and her team, and that doctor, and everyone else responsible) making Kamila take this medication is not just cheating in sports at the highest level, it’s also straight-up bodily harm of a minor. I’m not a medical expert, but from what I’ve read trimetazidine is only used for serious heart diseases and only for adults. It basically, from what I understand, makes your heart need less oxygen and helps against vertigo (definitely relevant to figure skating). It’s straight-up doping. And I wonder what long-term effects taking it could have on Kamila’s health because I doubt it’s a harmless thing to just take. What I’m saying is: Just banning her from coaching for life is not enough. Eteri basically poisoned a child. She should go to jail.
- ROC absolutely should lose their Team Event medal and Kamila should lose the European title (and also the National title, though idk if Russia cares enough to enforce that). Oh yeah, and her personal bests/world records won at those events, the “first woman to land a quad at the Olympics” thing... that all needs to go. Again, it’s absolutely not her fault and I feel terrible for her, but those medals and achievements are now proven to have been won while under the effects of a banned substance. If figure skating wants to retain even the slightest bit of the impression of being a fair sport, it should be absolutely no question that medals, titles and scores won with doping don’t get to be kept.
- And pretty much the same is true for Kamila’s participation in the individual event. I was a bit hesitant to say it my last post, but really, it should be a no-brainer: No, you can’t compete in the Olympics if you straight-up doped. You can’t call a sport fair and then let someone who broke the doping rules compete. Trimetazidine is banned in and out of competition. It doesn’t matter if the sample was from december. Letting Kamila compete would be unfair to every clean athlete here, it would completely destroy the idea that figure skating is a fair sport and that the Olympics are a fair event. And I hope they know that. (It would also send Russia the message that they can keep doping and get away with it.)
- I’ve said this before as well: If Kamila was doped, I highly doubt the other Eteri girls weren’t. Maybe not necessarily now (though that also wouldn’t surprise me), but if she’s not above drugging one of them, she’s not above drugging any of them. This brings back memories like that time they made Anna Shcherbakova compete with pneumonia and gave her smelling salts and how she somehow magically managed to get better over night and skate a great free skate. And that camp’s entire “unreachable” dominance in this discipline in general now seems incredibly suspicious. I thought it was just corrupt judging but now that we know there was doping involved as well... holy shit. This part is of course just speculation, but it definitely makes me at least question literally all of the Eteri girls’ results. And that makes me even angrier at everyone who ignored Eteri’s abusive methods for years and praised her to the heavens.
- It also makes me angry on behalf of all the athletes who were made to compete with the ET girls and told they’d never be as good over and over. I’m thinking in particular of my favourite women’s skater - Rika Kihira from Japan - who was constantly under so much pressure to compete with these Russian girls, who tried so hard to live up to that pressure and trained quads of her own, who then got injured because of all that overtraining and is now not at the Olympics because of that injury... and my heart breaks for her, too. To go through all of that and be told you have to be as good as these girls, to overwork yourself and lose your chance at the Olympics over it, only to then find out those girls were doped all along... I feel awful for her. She should be right here at these Olympics, and she should be a top medal contender.
- I hate how everyone who’s propped up Eteri and showered her with praise for years is now suddenly acting like they care about the well-being of these kids. Like, did you see Ted Barton’s tweets? As if he wasn’t the one who promoted Eteri for years? As if he didn’t block and belittle fans for expressing concern for Anna’s health during that whole smelling salts situation? As if he wasn’t literally a part of the problem?
- And lastly, this might sound like a strange thing to say, but despite how terrible it is this situation is, it’s making me feel cautiously optimistic - optimistic about Eteri finally going down, that is. Yes, it’s frustrating that we’ve all been calling out her abusive methods for years and no one listened... but they’re listening now. I can’t help feeling incredibly vindicated that this is all finally out there and getting talked about. The Olympics are the biggest stage ever and this is all over the news in every country. And most news outlets I’ve seen acknowledged that this is not 15-year-old Kamila’s fault, but the fault of “her coach”. Again, it’s too early to say what will happen, but a part of me feels optimistic that this might be the end for Eteri and her entire camp and the start of a serious conversation of how kids are treated in this sport. Maybe this is optimistic, but I hope she’s finally met her match. And that between this and the talks about raising the age limit, women’s figure skating might finally become fairer again.
