Valieva’s main line of defense, which was announced at a meeting of the anti-doping committee in Russia on February 9, is into the body of a 15-year-old athlete trimetazidine somehow got through her grandfather. An elderly man has heart problems, he takes this medicine regularly and spends a lot of time with Camila. However, the defense was unable to clearly explain how exactly the prohibited drug was transferred from the grandfather’s body to his granddaughter. The lawyer suggested that the whole point was that they drank from the same glass.
This version caused a lot of skepticism among the experts we interviewed. Trimetazidine is sold in tablets or capsules in a protective coating, the active substance is released only in the intestines. It turns out that grandfather had to empty the contents of his intestines into a glass, from which Valieva then drank, which is completely incredible.
In its properties, trimetazidine is similar to meldonium, another banned drug that was previously popular among Russian athletes. One of the invited experts stated this at the commission meeting. Trimetazidine and meldonium are thought to improve endurance. In fact, both drugs have little effect on athletic performance, however, they are easily “caught” in tests. There is no point in either one, but they can ruin a sports career, says an expert in the field of pharmacology with whom the Dossier Center spoke.
RUSADA’s position was that Valieva’s side did not prove that trimetazidine actually accidentally entered the athlete’s body. A representative of the organization proposed not to cancel the athlete’s temporary suspension. But the committee found the argument about the grandfather quite plausible. Now this decision has been supported by the international Sports Arbitration. However, his verdict concerns only the temporary suspension of Kamila Valieva from competitions. Essentially, the issue of doping in her sample will be considered after the Olympics.
https://dossier.center/kamila/
In the summer of 2021, the Prosecutor General’s Office blocked our website. Now Dossier Center investigations can only be read via VPN or on a mirror:
Kamila Valieva decided not to be suspended from the Olympic Games
We learned how her defense explained the doping in the sample
“ВЧК ОГПУ”