Okay, so now RE: Kamila…
I really don’t think there’s anything more I can say that hasn’t already been said today. This decision is absolutely disgusting and shameful in every way. Even if it’s not the final decision, even if they might strip her of the medal later, the choice to let her compete at all is still disgusting.
I feel bad for every clean athlete in this sport who basically got told today that their efforts don’t matter and it’s okay for their competition to dope. There are already reports of the other women being distracted and having messy practices because this whole situation is weighing on them. Even if you amend the results later to remove Kamila from them, this is already creating an unfair situation right now. (Also when I heard that Anna somehow magically got better over night again… Yikes. Ngl, I’m questioning literally ALL the ET girls’ past results right now.)
I also feel bad for all the clean athletes who spent these last years chasing after the ET girls, who had to make big sacrifices and got hurt trying to get ultra-C elements, some of whom are at these Olympics (Wakaba, Kaori), and some of whom got injured and aren’t here (Rika, Bradie).
And I also feel bad for Kamila herself. The statement that not letting her compete “would be bad for her mental health” is such BS. What about the mental health of all the clean athletes who are suffering now? And do they really think it’s healthier for Kamila to compete now under scrutiny of the whole world and then get stripped of the medal afterwards? The best thing for her mental health would be to send her home. Also “she’s a protected person”? That should mean protecting her from people like Eteri and their abuse, not letting her compete on doping.
It’s telling just how huge this is when even the skaters aren’t holding back with their outrage anymore. The fact that Yuna Kim posted about it, that so many retired skaters are talking about it, that Wakaba and Rika are openly liking posts that criticize this decision (and they’re right to!)… This isn’t over, but it just got uglier.
(And also, the hypocrisy? Carolina Kostner got banned because her boyfriend doped. Not even she herself, her boyfriend. Yelim Kim, 13-years-old at the time, got reprimanded harshly for missing a testing appointment (not even for testing positively, just for missing the appointment) and no one cared about her age. In fact, they argued at the time that her age didn’t matter. How must she be feeling now to have to compete against Kamila who’s just… allowed to dope?)
Also, this might seem “superficial”, but it’s really not: Someone who fairly wins an Olympic medal deserves a medal ceremony. Going “if Kamila’s on the podium, we just won’t do a medal ceremony until we have a final decision” is just robbing skaters of an Olympic moment they deserve. Whoever would get that bronze (assuming that Kamila is disqualified and Sasha and Anna take gold and silver in either order), deserves not to have their Olympic medal be an afterthought that takes weeks to decide on. They deserve to have their moment on the podium. And Team USA and Team Japan deserve their podium moments together for the team event as well. Like, you all know I hate the team event and think it’s a sham, but that doesn’t change that now that that team event happened, those teams deserve to actually have their podium moments together.
And one more thing because it belongs on this post and I can’t say it often enough: I FUCKING HATE RUSSIA. Why can’t that country just be normal instead of ruining everything for everyone else? God, I hate them. They learned nothing. They’re literally framing this whole story as an “attack on Russia” in the media and making Kamila their martyr-figure who’s being unfairly accused and held back by those evil Russia-haters. That’s what they’re framing this as instead of putting the blame where it should go: Eteri. Honestly, it’s not surprising after how they also framed themselves as victims for not getting to have their beloved ugly flag in 2018. Russia has such a gigantic victim complex it’s insane.
And Kamila’s toxic “fans”? The worst. Did you hear how they apparently bullied Jason Brown and said antisemitic things against him just because he said he believes in clean sport (something that should literally not be controversial at all)? Scum of the earth, honestly.
