15-year-old Kamila Valieva should 'suffer the consequences' of her failed drugs test, an ex-US Olympian and world champion skater says

• Ex-Olympic skater Randy Gardner says Kamila Valieva should face the same punishments as others caught doping.
• Gardner, a world champion in 1979, said that she should "suffer the consequences" of her failed drug test.

Kamila Valieva, the 15-year-old figure skater who tested positive for a banned substance, must face the same punishment as any other athlete would, former world champion skater and Winter Olympian Randy Gardner said.

Gardner, who competed at the 1976 Winter Olympics with his partner Tai Babilonia, and won a world championship in 1979, made the assertion on Twitter Monday, just hours after Valieva was cleared to continue competing at the Beijing Winter Olympics by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

"If you're old enough to compete in the Olympics, you're old enough to take responsibility of the doping rules and suffer the consequences of any athlete," the American tweeted without directly naming Valieva.

"End. Of. Story."

Valieva stunned the world as she landed a historic quadruple jump in Beijing's team figure skating team event competition on February 7, helping the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) win gold.

Just four days later on February 11, the International Testing Agency (ITA) then revealed that she had tested positive for the prohibited substance trimetazidine while competing at the Russian national championships in Saint Petersburg last year.

The positive test was taken on Christmas Day 2021, and was analyzed and reported by a laboratory accredited by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in Sweden on February 8, the ITA said.

Valieva was slapped with an immediate provisional suspension by Russia's anti-doping agency (RUSADA), however following a swift appeal, the ban was overturned by on February 9.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) challenged the decision at the CAS, which on Monday revealed it had decided to allow how to continue to compete in Beijing.

The court did not state, however, whether Valieva or the ROC would be able to keep their team event gold medals.

While Gardner and others have called for Valieva to face strict punishments for her failed drugs test, others disagree, instead saying she is merely the product of a corrupt system.

Russia has a long history of doping offenses, dating back to the Soviet era.

In 2016, an independent commission led Canadian law professor and sports lawyer Richard McLaren revealed evidence of widespread "state-sponsored doping" by Russian athletes at the 2014 Sochi Olympics.

As a result, Russia was banned from the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Games, though Russian athletes could compete as neutrals "as long as they satisfy strict conditions that show they have a doping-free background."

A subsequent investigation by WADA in 2019 then found there to be "inconsistencies" in historical data supplied by the Russia's anti-doping authority.

Russia was again banned from competing at the world's top sporting events, this time for four years, though that was reduced to two years by CAS in December 2020.

German skating legend Katarina Witt said those responsible for Valieva's failed drug test should be the ones who are punished most severely.

"As an athlete, you follow the advice of your loved ones and, in this case, always first of all the coaching and medical team," Witt, a two-time Olympic champion, wrote on Facebook. "You just trust that they know what is right and what is wrong.

"She is not to blame here. If anything, the responsible adults should be banned from sport forever."