LAUSANNE, Switzerland — The final appeal hearing to decide medals in Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva's doping case at the 2022 Beijing Olympics will take place just days before the Paris Olympics open.
A hearing will be held in the Swiss city of Lausanne on July 22 for the eight Canadian skaters who are seeking bronze medals in the team events, the Court of Arbitration for Sport reported Friday.
The Summer Games officially open four days later, and the International Olympic Committee hopes to finally hand out medals for the Beijing team figure skating event in Paris before the closing ceremony on August 11. It will be two and a half years since Valieva helped Russia win team gold, ahead of the United States, Japan and fourth-place Canada.
The medals were never awarded in Beijing because a positive test result by Valieva, then 15, on a sample taken six weeks earlier in Russia was not alerted to the global anti-doping system until after the Olympic competition had ended.
In January, another CAS panel disqualified Valieva from the Olympics and banned her from the sport for four years. The judges rejected her lawyers' claim that she had been infected with a banned heart medication contained in a strawberry dessert made by her grandfather.
The CAS verdict meant that the US team was promoted to the gold medal and Japan to the silver.
However, when the International Skating Union stripped Valieva's points from the entire Russian team, the method of not adding points to skaters who finished behind her left Canada still in fourth place.
On June 12, three Russian appeals were heard before the CAS against the ISU's amended result (from Russian athletes, their national skating federation and the Russian Olympic body seeking to regain gold). These verdicts have not been published.
Canada's call for bronze medals is the last to be heard.
The IOC Executive Board has the final decision on the reallocation of Olympic medals when results are affected by doping cases. Athletes whose results are subsequently improved are consulted on the possibility of collecting their medals at a future appropriate ceremony, such as at a world championship or future Olympic Games.
In Paris, the medalists will be honored at the Parc des Champions, at Trocadéro, near the Eiffel Tower.
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