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The Russian selection in figure skating
Photo: Alexander Vilf / imago images / SNA
The Russian selection, which won the figure skating team competition at the Beijing Olympics on Monday, still has to wait for their gold medal.
The official award ceremony on Tuesday evening was canceled at short notice.
According to media reports, the reason for this should be a positive doping test.
The »Guardian« and the portal »Inside the Games« report on this, among others.
"A situation has arisen at short notice that requires legal advice," said Mark Adams, a spokesman for the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
He did not confirm a positive doping test.
The media reports have not yet revealed when the positive result occurred.
In "Inside the Games", however, it is said that a drug was found that was not taken to increase performance, but in leisure time.
According to Olympic rules, performance-enhancing drugs are penalized differently than recreational drugs.
Russian coach denies
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said they would await official statements before commenting on the matter.
Russian coach Tatiana Tarasova has denied that any of the athletes on the Russian Olympic Committee would dope.
"It can't be true," Tarasova said when asked about doping allegations.
"You can point fingers at us, but we're all clean."
Kamila Valeva, the 15-year-old who completed the first woman's quadruple jump at an Olympic competition, is one of four Russian athletes who failed to show up for training on Wednesday.
Couple dancers Anastasia Mishina and Aleksandr Galliamov as well as Mark Kondratiuk were also absent from the training sessions.
Ice dance couple Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov, who were also part of the winning team, showed up for practice.
It was initially unclear why the other four athletes were missing.
Media reports say that the athlete who may have been convicted could be 15-year-old Valeva.
This could also be the reason why there is no confirmation of the incident so far.
Valeva is listed as a "protected person" under the rules of the World Anti-Doping Code because she would not have reached the age of 16 at the time of the possible violation.
This would not allow Valeva to be officially identified if she was found guilty of an anti-doping rule violation.
Due to doping sanctions, the Russian athletes are not competing in Beijing as representatives of their home country, but as representatives of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC).
The World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) reduced bans on recreationally used substances as part of a policy change last year.
Athletes who test positive outside of competitions now face a ban of three months instead of two years.
According to Wada, a substance must meet two of the following criteria to be included on the banned list: enhancing performance, endangering an athlete's health and violating the spirit of sport.
jan/Reuters