Two athletes already stripped of 2018 Olympics medals in doping incident
It seems like it’s not officially an Olympic Games until someone gets nailed for using performance-enhancing drugs, and anyone who thought the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang were going to be any different just had their hopes swept aside by a curling broom.
Russian curler Alexander Krushelnitsky and his wife, Anastasia Bryzgalova, had their bronze medals in mixed doubles curling rescinded by the Court of Arbitration for Sport after Krushelnitsky tested positive for meldonium, which reportedly helps with blood circulation.
Krushelnitsky was given a “provisional suspension” from future curling events but he “reserved his rights to seek the elimination or reduction of any period of ineligibility based on ‘no fault or negligence,'” effectively leaving the door open for a legal fight that would be outside the watchful gaze of the world’s sporting media once all those Olympic sports go back into their quadrennial hibernation and obscurity.
The World Curling Federation has yet to pass its own judgment; it is likely to do so after the Games have concluded, for the same reasons.
The Russian national Olympic federation was banned wholesale from the Pyeongchang Games after a massive doping scandal at the Sochi Winter Games in 2014, but 168 athletes not officially affiliated with the disgraced Russian body are competing pseudo-independently as “Olympic Athletes From Russia,” essentially the first non-state actors in Olympic history.
Of course, where there’s a disgraced medalist, there’s a fourth-place team just waiting to take advantage, and the bronze medal now goes to Norway’s Magnus Nedregotten and Kristin Skaslien, who had lost the bronze medal match 8-4 to the doped-up Russkies.
Nedregotten said Tuesday that if Krushelnitsky was found guilty, then “they’ve robbed us of our moment of glory, receiving our medal in the stadium.”
“That’s not cool,” he told the Associated Press. “That’s hard to accept, feeling that you’ve been kept out of the light.”
The Russian curling federation didn’t take the medal decision well, resorting to conspiracy theories that could’ve been ripped from the politics section of the newspaper rather than the sports page.
Russian officials said they believe Krushelnitsky’s food or drink could have been spiked with meldonium by Russia’s political enemies or even by enemies from within who didn’t make the national team.
Meldonium is easily obtained in Eastern Europe, where it is frequently used in medicine for its ability to prevent a heart attack due to ischemia, which is when tissue death occurs due to insufficient blood flow to organs, most notably the heart.
It also has a short but illustrious history as the bete noire of anti-doping authorities in Russian athletes.
Alexander Povetkin, the heavyweight boxer, lost out on a title shot because he tested positive for meldonium in the run-up to his fight with Deontay Wilder.
In addition, Maria Sharapova was the pariah of the tennis community after her own positive test for meldonium in 2016. Sharapova claimed she had taken the drug for years as part of her regular medical regime and was unaware that it had been banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency by the time she got rung up on the violation.
One hundred and seventy athletes have been banned from various sports since the ban on meldonium went into effect in 2016, and all but a handful were from either the former Soviet Union or its Warsaw Pact satellite nations in Eastern Europe.
Dmitry Svishchev, president of Russia’s curling federation, said he hopes the loss of the medals is only temporary.
“This is by no means an admission of guilt, nor an end to the fight for our guys’ honor,” Svishchev said.
Krushelnitsky, for his part, simply said in a statement, “I accept a formal breach of the current anti-doping rules.”
He and Bryzgalova, however, still regard themselves as “clean athletes.”
Seems like the Soviet talent for doublespeak is alive and well 27 years after the Cold War.
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