IOC will not investigate Sochi gold medalist's doping admission

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Published: 08 Aug. 2023, 09:17 Updated: 08 Aug. 2023, 17:45

IOC will not investigate Sochi gold medalist's doping admission

Silver medalist Kim Yuna of Korea, right, hugs gold medalist Adelina Sotnikova of Russia after the ladies' figure skating free skating event at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia on Feb. 20, 2014. [XINHUA/YONHAP]

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) refused a request from Korean officials to reinvestigate the results of the women’s figure skating final at the 2014 Sochi Olympics after gold medalist Adelina Sotnikova recently admitted failing an initial doping test that year.

An official from the Korean Sport & Olympic Committee said Monday that the IOC responded to Korea’s request last Friday, saying Sotnikova tested negative in 2014 and there was no indication during investigations at the time of any anti-doping rule violation.

The decision to appeal comes after Sotnikova told a Russian YouTube channel that she failed a drug test in 2014, but was cleared after providing a second sample. Clearing an athlete based solely on a second sample is considered highly irregular.

“Sotnikova said with her own mouth that she was positive in the first test in 2014 and negative in the second test," an official from KSOC told Yonhap News Agency last month. "This is a very rare case, so a reinvestigation is needed. Since drug testing technology has improved, we think they should be able to find something that they couldn't in the past.”

The YouTube video was deleted shortly after it was published and Sotnikova later said that she did not mean she had failed a drug test, only that officials “had found scratches” on the tube containing her sample.

Sotnikova scored 224.59 points in the women’s figure skating at the 2014 Sochi Games, beating gold medal favorite and defending champion Kim Yuna of Korea by more than five points. The result was hugely contentious at the time, with criticism aimed at judging that some pundits felt intentionally favored the home country.

If the IOC has reopened the investigation and Sotnikova was found to have failed a drug test that year, the IOC could have chosen to revoke her gold medal and award it to Kim instead. While unusual, a total of 52 Olympic gold medals have been retroactively stripped and re-rewarded in the past for infringements ranging from doping to improper behavior during the award ceremony.

Sotnikova was accused of tampering with her drug testing samples at the time, but was later cleared by the IOC on the basis of insufficient evidence.

World Anti-Doping Agency regulations require athlete blood and urine samples to be held for at least 10 years, so Sotnikova’s samples from the Sochi Games should still be available for reinvestigation.

Russia recently completed a four-year ban from the Olympics on charges of tampering with doping-related reports. The country has been accused of state-sponsored doping of athletes throughout the 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2018 Olympics, with the director of the country’s antidoping laboratory even publicly admitting that he had provided banned substances to hundreds of athletes for years.

Russian athletes have been stripped of a total of 43 medals following doping investigations, including four from the Sochi Olympics. According to the former antidoping lab director, as many as 15 Russian medalists at the 2014 Games should have tested positive, but were protected by results tampering at Russian-operated labs.

BY JIM BULLEY [jim.bulley@joongang.co.kr]