I Do Doping!
Another Russian athlete failed a doping test at the PyeongChang Games, after she previously appeared in a promotional video where she appears to denounce performance-enhancing drugs.
Russian Bobsled Federation president Alexander Zubkov told The Associated Press on Friday that a drug-test sample that pilot Nadezhda Sergeeva gave on Sunday was positive.
The positive test, which comes just a day before the International Olympic Committee’s executive board is to decide whether to reinstate the country for Sunday’s closing ceremony, is Russia’s second failed test of the Winter games and the fourth overall among athletes.
Oddly, Sergeeva, who’s crew finished 12th in the women’s bobsled competition on Wednesday, previously appeared in a anti-doping video — which has since been removed from YouTube — where she donned a shirt saying “I Don’t Do Doping.”
The Russian delegation at the PyeongChang Olympics said in a statement that the substance found was trimetazdine, a medication used for angina sufferers that is listed by the World Anti-Doping Agency as a banned substance affecting the metabolism.
“She confirms she took no such medication and the team confirms she was not issued any medication,” said Zubkov, a former bobsledder who himself was stripped of two Olympic gold medals for the Russian doping scheme at the 2014 Sochi Games. “Federation representatives at the Olympics” are starting to prepare a defense, he said.
Zubkov also said a sample she had given five days earlier was negative.
“I can tell you that on the 13th it was clean, but on the 18th it gave a positive result for the heart medication,” he said.
The Russian team was barred from the Olympics in December for doping at the Sochi Games, but the IOC invited 168 athletes from the country to compete under the Olympic flag.
“This won’t win us any extra credit,” Russian delegation leader Stanislav Pozdnyakov said in comments reported by Russian media. “Unfortunately this case speaks to negligence by the athlete. She has let us down.”
Earlier this month, Sergeeva told the AP that competitors from other countries had warmed to her after she passed IOC vetting for PyeongChang, which included an examination of her drug-testing history.
“I don’t know why, but they’ve started talking to us more than ever before. I feel it. Maybe it’s a sign to them that we’re clean,” Sergeeva said. “There’s a lot of people coming up and saying, `We’re happy you’re here.”
With AP