ISU REVOKES NEUTRAL STATUS FOR VALIEVA AND THREE OTHER RUSSIAN SKATERS

The International Skating Union has revoked the neutral athlete status of Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva and three other Russian skaters from the 2022 Winter Olympics. The decision applies to Valieva, men's skater Mark Kondratiuk, and ice dancers Alexandra Stepanova and Ivan Bukin. The ISU offered no specific reasons for the rejections. Valieva and her fellow skaters have three weeks to lodge an appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Under ISU rules, Russian athletes have been permitted to compete as neutral athletes since their country's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, though they remain barred from competing under their national flag. According to those rules, individuals are presumed eligible unless the ISU determines they are in active military or security service for Russia or Belarus, have taken part in military operations against Ukraine, or have publicly supported that war. Valieva had initially been granted neutral status for the 2026-27 season before that approval was refused. A video featuring Russian president Vladimir Putin is pinned on Valieva's Instagram account.

Valieva's career has been marked by earlier controversy. At the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, she became the first female skater to land a quadruple jump during the Games whilst competing on the Russian team. However, she later tested positive for heart medication trimetazidine, classed as a performance-enhancing drug, six weeks before the competition. She and her team-mates were subsequently stripped of gold. The ban was backdated to December 2021, when she tested positive. The Russian Anti-Doping Agency concluded she bore "no fault or negligence", though the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld an appeal by the World Anti-Doping Agency.