Sozhi, who gave a conclusion in favor of Valieva, advised Russia at the 2014 Games
WADA expert Martial Saugy, who gave an opinion in favor of acquitting Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva, had ties to Russia. This is reported by Inside the Games.
According to the source, the doping laboratory in Helsinki, headed by Sozhi, destroyed 67 doping samples of Russian athletes before the 2012 Olympic Games in London. In addition, Sozhi was present at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi as an accredited consultant for the Russian Ministry of Sports.
Earlier, Associated Press reported that an experiment was conducted during the investigation that could prove Valieva’s innocence. Sozhi issued a conclusion that the contamination of the athlete’s sample could indeed have occurred through dessert. However, the reasoning part of the verdict does not include Sozhi’s conclusions.
On January 29, the Court of Arbitration for Sport disqualified Valieva for four years for violating anti-doping rules. Traces of the banned drug trimetazidine were found in the skater’s sample from December 2021. Valieva insisted that the drug was consumed through dishes used by her and her grandfather.
The athlete was stripped of her gold medals from the European Championship, the Russian Championship, and the team tournament of the 2022 Olympic Games (along with the entire Russian team).
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